Ceylon Cinnamon

A few months ago I was poking around the Internet and found a video about the different kinds of cinnamon. Who knew! For what I learned on this video about how Ceylon cinnamon is different from the kind we usually find in our grocery stores in the USA. Korintje cassia cinnamon comes from Indonesia, usually Sumatra (Cinnamomum burmannii). As “supermarket cinnamon,” it is the most familiar to us. Vietnamese cassia (Saigon cinnamon, Cinnamomum loureiroi) and Chinese cassia (Cinnamomum aromaticum) are the sweetest and strongest varieties. Vietnamese cinnamon is considered by many to be the world’s finest cinnamon; it and the Chinese cassia are not only sweeter, but more aromatic and more powerful (“spicier”) than the Indonesian Korintje cassia commonly sold in supermarkets. (copied from http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/salts/cinnamon.asp)

After leaning about Ceylon cinnamon, I had to try it. I bought mine from from Savory Spice Shop. As you can see from the picture at the top it even looks different. It is much softer and very easy to grind in my spice grinder. I like it much better than the super market variety!

I'm a Tennessee tea sipper. I drink hot tea like other people drink coffee. My latest favorite wake up drink is hot organic white tea with honey, fresh ground Ceylon cinnamon, lemon and oranges wedge - oh so yummy! If you don't have a grinder you can break up the cinnamon and put pieces of the bark in your tea or tea pot and strain it out after it steeps or leave it in but be sure not to swallow it and get choked. If you have a hard time finding Organic White Tea, I use Prince of Peach White Tea from Vita Cost.

Ceylon Cinnamon is a good substitute for cassia cinnamon in any recipe. Give it a try and I bet you will be hooked just like me.

Make your own Croutons

Home made croutons

Why spend two or three dollars a box for dry tasteless croutons when you can make your own from left over bread. I save the end pieces and any left over bread and make croutons with my dried herbs (or Italian spice mix) and olive oil spray - real simple and quick!

Seasoning ingredients

Start with the bread and use kitchen scissors to cut it into small squares,

bread ready to cube

cubed and ready to bake

Now spray the pieces with olive oil spray. Spray is cheaper and easier than pouring messy olive oil all over the place. I use my fresh dried oregano and basil plus garlic salt but Italian spice mix will work too. I use it generously! Toss to coat well and pop into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Stir the croutons about half way through.They should be golden brown and crispy when done.  Let cool before storing in a baggie or tin. Enjoy!

Medicinal Uses for Herbs

I found this helpful little chart on twitter. Thanks @TommiEL67 for giving me permission to use your picture.

How To Dry Herbs Two Simple Ways

Even though it's February here in the upper south and outside temps are in the 30's, I have herbs in my garden that could be harvested and used fresh in cooking or dried for use later.

I want to show you two easy ways to dry those herbs.

herbs hanging to dry

No special tools are needed to dry herbs inside on a simple hanger. A coat hanger works great and you can hang them anywhere there is  a warm dry place, I sometimes clip small bunches of herbs with a clothes pin to a wire shelf near my kitchen window. The picture here is a coat hanger that holds at least 3 bunches hanging in the laundry room. I have oregano, rosemary and sage on this hanger. An attic in summer is a terrific place for this but might be too cold in winter. I tied my herbs with twine and used clothes pins to hold them to the hanger. They should be dry in about a week. Then I just strip the leaves off, toss the stems into the compost and store them in jars or zip top bags.


The other method I use when I have lots of herbs ready to dry involves my electric food dryer. These are available on line and come in several price ranges. Mine is made by Nesco American Harvest and was fairly inexpensive. It works well for what I need to do. The first step of course is to harvest the herbs,. Next spread them out  (stems and al) on one of the racks that come with the dryer, stack up the shelves and put the top on. Herbs dry best on the low setting (95°- 100°).  I check them daily and rearrange the order of shelves top to bottom if needed. In a very few days, sometimes 24 hours, the herbs are ready to store as in the previous method. Now what could be simpler than that? If you ever dry and cook with your own herbs, You will never be happy with store bought herbs again!

dried oregano ready store

food dryer



 

 



food dryer temp control



 

 



Herb Butters

I hope you all are enjoying the herbs you dried over the past summer; I certainly am. If you didn't dry any or you don't know how next weeks post will be about preserving your herbs so you can save some money next year by making your own herb mixes.

One of my favorite ways to use my dried herbs - fresh ones too - is in herb butters. I actually used a butter substitute made from Olive oil ( Smart Balance) but real butter works too. Bill has a triple heart by pass so we avoid butter when we can.

Pictured above is the start of garlic/parsley spread and here is the finished product all ready for the table.

My favorite recipes:

Garlic Parsley Spread

1/2 cup butter substitute spread or 1/2 stick of real butter (softened)

2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley( 3 Tb if using dried)

1 teaspoon pressed fresh garlic plus dash of salt or 2 teaspoons garlic salt (more if you REALLY like garlic) 

Mix all together, press into a bowl or butter mold if you have one,chill to firm the mix a little, add a spring of fresh parsley for a pretty garnish. Yummy on Italian bread with soup!

This next one is good on sourdough bread and compliments Chicken dishes and dried beans. BTW: Rosemary is wonderful added to dried navy beans while cooking.

Rosemary Butter

Same amounts of butter as above

1 1/2 Teaspoons dried Rosemary (less if using fresh)

a dash of salt and fresh cracked pepper

Mix as above

I found this next one on TipNut web site. It is for bulk dill spread. I like the idea of making butter balls with a melon ball tool and freezing them for later use.

Garlic Dill – Bulk Recipe
Scoop balls or slice into pats then freeze.
Recipe:
12 to 14 cloves garlic
1 cup butter
2 to 2 1/2 TBS dill (finely chopped, fresh)
Paprika (a dash or two to taste)
Directions:

• Cover garlic cloves with water, bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain cloves from water and allow to cool. Once cool, remove the skins and crush the cloves.
• Mix with the rest of the ingredients using a food processor or blender. You can also do this by hand if the butter has first been softened.
• Once everything has been thoroughly mixed, chill in the refrigerator then make individual pats and freeze.

If you have a favorite Herb recipe, please post it in our comment section and be sure to leave us a link to your site if you have one.

 

The Great Granola Experiment

Now that I'm not working as much,  I have more time to play in the kitchen as well as in the garden. Saving money where ever I can has become more important too. With all that in mind and the fact that we eat granola and yogurt almost every morning, I decided to make my own granola again. I had a really good granola recipe from back in the 70's and I guess if I had wanted to wade through a ton of old recipes I could have found it. But heck, life is an adventure so I figured I could recreate it from memory.

What I came up with turned out pretty good but there were a couple of things I will do different next time. I remembered that the old recipe called for apple sauce, of course oats, nuts and cinnamon. I decided to add brown sugar, raisins, dried bananas and apples (that I had dried last fall) dried cranberries, flax seeds and I used English walnuts instead of the pecans that the original recipe had called for.  The applesauce was cinnamon applesauce so I didn't add extra cinnamon. I started with 8 cups of old fashioned oats and added about half of a 48 oz. jar of apple sauce - this turned out to be too much. I had to cook it way too long to get it to crisp up. Next time I will use one 12 oz. jar instead. I also put mine in baking dishes to cook - ended up taking it out of the oven and spreading out on cookie sheets to finish it up.

I waited till the oat, applesauce, brown sugar and nut mixture was browned and cool before I added the dried fruit. Even with the extra cooking and  too much applesauce the finished product was real good! So here is the recipe I will use next time.

8 cups of old fashioned oats
12 oz. cinnamon applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup of chopped walnuts
2 Tablespoons Flax Seeds
Mix all the above in a large mixing bowl until moistened. Spread this mixture onto cookie sheets covered with parchment paper or lightly oiled with vegetable spray. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until lightly browned, stir a couple of times during cooking to keep the bottom from burning.  Cool mixture on the baking sheets. After oat mixture is cool put back into large bowl and add any or all the following:
1 cup raisins
1 cup Craisins
1 cup dried apples (cut into bite size pieces)
1 cup dried bananas
Dried cherries would be good too as well as dried mango or pineapple pieces.

I put enough for us to use for a week in a plastic container and stored the rest in vacuum sealed bags and put them into my freezer to eat later. For less than $10 I made enough preservative free cereal for us to eat for a month; bearing in mind that we normally go through one $3.00 box of store bought granola a week.

Give it a try. It actually doesn't take much time and the results are yummy!