Bettina's Cookbook - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for the ‘Bettina’s Cookbook’ Category

Ginger Pralines

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Pralines generate memories that takes me back to a really great childhood. I shall always be grateful to those who sacrificed so much for me.

A neighbor and I (Troy Lynn), used to get in my grandmother’s kitchen and experiment with pralines. Troy Lynn took her pralines home and ate them. I sold mine. My entrepreneurial spirit started early. I ran that enterprise the way some corporations are run today – which is probably why I understand those corporations.

My grandmother supplied the ingredients for the pralines, which was great, but I stuck my mouth out when she suggested I pay for the sugar out of my earnings. I was crushed. “Why do you want me to pay for sugar. You have lots of it in the cupboard.” She tried to tell me about making sure you were making a profit. You also had to count your time in the equation so you would know if it was profitable or not. I was truly appalled at that point. If I did all of that I wouldn’t make a profit and it wouldn’t be worth making the pralines. “That’s the point of doing the math,” my grandmother said. My mouth continued to be stuck out and when she insisted, it started to quiver and she knew tears were next so she just gave up and I had a very successful business.

Thinking of those years and my grandmother and having been on the telephone with Troy Lynn talking about this venture, I decided to make pralines, just to connect to those times and those feelings and my grandmother.

She would have been amazed at the results of my efforts. I am in awe at what I have created. The pralines were sensational. I feel a little sick because I’ve eaten so many and goodness knows what the sugar is going to do to my aging body.

Those pralines brought so many memories rushing back I was crying by the time I finished making them. But, they were not a pure New Orleans creation. They connected Old New Orleans to the East. With these pralines I have managed to make cultural connections with New Orleans, Asia and India.

Ginger tea has become a staple in our kitchen. We always have a glass jar filled with Ginger Tea that we make, at least once a week. (ed.note – see Bettina’s Blog for the recipe). We use it either as ‘sweet tea’ or regular tea – and it has a very strong kick.

This time, by Providence, the tea jar was empty and in the bottom were the slices of ginger root which we let steep to keep the ginger tea strong. That was the genesis of these fantastic pralines.

I used the ginger root slices in the pralines the way one would use pecans. I also used a little freshly ground nutmeg in some and cumin in others with the ginger root. The pralines were vaguely reminiscent of New Orleans pralines, but with a newness that made them a sensation. Pralines, for some, are the very essence of Creole New Orleans. The only food with a stronger connection to Creole New Orleans would be hot callas, but then that’s another blog.

New Orleans today has a very large influx of Asians that call it home. These Ginger Pralines are a cultural amalgam which reflects today’s reality of the city New Orleans has become.

We had just one guest in the house while I was making these pralines. She came into the kitchen while the pralines were cooling on the marble slab and between us we ate all except two of the pralines. Two seemed to be a decent amount to keep to see how they would taste when they were thoroughly cooled. She went to bed and after a respectable time, Robert and I split the last two pralines. They were even better cooled so I made more for tomorrow. They are now downstairs cooling. Maybe they will make it into tomorrow and maybe they won’t. I haven’t been up this late for months – my 7pm bedtime has been shot – my children would be proud!

Pralines aux Ginger – a very recherche dessert
(to be served on heavily gold encrusted dessert plates and eaten with your fingers)

Organic Turbinado Sugar how much you use depends upon how many pralines you want to produce.
for a first timer – two cups should suffice so if you ruin the pralines you can try again without knashing your teeth over your loss of ingredients.
for the experienced candy maker who wants a good number of pralines – one pound

Sliced Organic Ginger Root which has been boiled in a large pot of water for several hours to make tea. The Ginger Root you use for these pralines are what’s left over after the ginger tea is gone.

Water – freshly ground Nutmeg – Cumin

1. Put the sugar in a PORCELAIN POT.

2. Add water to moisten and cover the sugar. Don’t mix the two together. Pour the water over the sugar being careful not to let it splash, etc.

3. Bring the water and sugar to a boil to make a, sort of, simple syrup, but not that liquid.

4. When this mixture reaches about 200 degrees, add the ginger root and let it boil until the mixture begins to bubble and has almost, but not quite, turned to sugar. Stir constantly without stopping.

5. Quickly add any spices you want to incorporate into these pralines – ground nutmeg, cumin, whatever. Given the fact that you are using Ginger Root – even Root that has been previously boiled for several hours, I would not add anything with heat. These will have plenty heat on their own.

6. Take the pot off the fire and drop by the spoonfuls onto a buttered marble slab so you form what looks like small pancakes. Spread these with the spoon and round them with a fork until they form neat, round cakes – the size and thickness depends upon you. I like them about 1/4 inch thick and about 4-5″ in diameter.

Let them dry. Pick them up with a knife or spatula, very gently. You will have the memory of a New Orleans Creole Praline changed into an East meets West confection. Someone have a name for this?

____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Making Connections, Preserving Family History and Stories | No Comments »

Creole Breakfast Cake

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

“Creole” is New Orleans Creole.
This is a quick and simple breakfast cake which can be made in less than 20 minutes. Very good if you want a nice ending to breakfast and don’t want to spend hours baking. If you want to dress it up, whip a little heavy cream, add organic turbinado sugar to the heavy cream and drop a dollop on top of a slice of this cake. Rumor has it the recipe was created in a convent in New Orleans when the nuns were cleaning out the refrigerator and baked this with what they had.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Organic Turbinado Sugar
1/2 cup Organic, Stone-Ground, Whole Wheat Flour

for this cake you can use either Pastry or Regular Flour, depending upon your taste at the time
Use Pastry Flour when you want a more refined cake, Regular Flour when you want
something a little heartier – just make sure whatever you use is not only Organic and Whole Wheat
but it is also Stone Ground – a very important distinction – otherwise the flour is milled with heat
which destroys all of the nutrition and it becomes a flour which has a very long shelf life. It has
that long shelf life because bugs won’t touch it – there is no nutrition in it. Even bugs know you
don’t bother eating what doesn’t contribute to your life and health. What bugs won’t eat, neither
should you. A long shelf life benefits the seller, and ruins the health of the buyer.

1 Tablespoon baking power
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Organic milk (preferably raw)
1 organic egg
4 Tablespoons Organic butter (melted)
Extra Organic Turbinado Sugar and Cinnamon to mix and sprinkle over top of cake.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the sugar, flour, baking powder and sale. Add the egg, milk and melted butter. Mix well. Place the mixture in a round or square baking dish, depending upon your taste. Make the baking dish either stainless steel or glass, please. Sprinkle the top with the sugar and cinnamon mix.

Bake about 15 minutes.

Couldn’t be quicker or simpler for a nice treat to sooth that sweet tooth.

_________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

A Bettina Coconut Cake

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Cakes can be easy to make – or – judging from some recipe’s I’ve read, they can be extraordainarily difficult.

I was raised with a simple 1-2-3-4 cake. It can be varied with different ingredients and it doesn’t take a genius to remember the recipe without pouring, once again, over many cookbooks. This is the basis for the coconut cake.

1 – One cup of organic butter (equivalent to two sticks)

Put butter in your stand mixer and let it whirl for a few minutes

2. Two cups organic turbinado sugar

Add the sugar to the butter, pouring it slowly while your mixer is on – almost, but not quite to the highest setting. Don’t let the butter mix too far ahead of adding the sugar because you can get the whipped cream look to your mixture if you add the sugar just a minute or two after you start whipping the butter.

3. In a bowl measure three cups organic STONE-GROUND whole wheat pastry flour

To this you want to add one teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix this with a spoon or wire whisk until you’ve put lots of air into the flour.

4. Four organic eggs

Add the eggs to the sugar and butter mixture one at a time, mixing until they are fully incorporated, but don’t mix this too long. The sugar and butter can be whipped forever and the cake gets better the longer they mix. Once you start adding eggs, don’t beat the cake too much.

After the eggs are incorporated, alternate adding the flour mixture and the liquid to the sugar-egg-butter mix. In this case, for the coconut cake, the liquid is either one can or 1/2 can of organic coconut milk. If you are good at making your own coconut milk, go ahead, it makes for a better cake, but the canned organic variety is my speed at this point in time……..for two reasons a) I don’t know how to make coconut milk and b) I can never find organic coconuts to experiment.

If you would like a creamier cake, add the whole can of organic coconut milk. I find 1/2 can is more to my taste – it produces a drier cake, but not too dry.

Put the cake in either two* or four* cake pans which have been well buttered and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. That is an estimate of time because each stove will bake in a different time frame. When the cake looks done, springs back when you touch the top and a straw or knife put in the center comes out clean, then you know the cake is done.

*If you like lots of icing on your cake you might consider making four layers. If you like a less sweet cake then you want to choose to make only two layers.

One goodness of a cake made with all organic ingredients is that it tends to be less sweet than a cake made with white granulated sugar.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool.

The long part is the icing:

Break 4 eggs and separate them – the egg whites are what you want to use for this icing. The only reason is because the icing on a coconut cake should be white and to use the entire egg would produce a more ivory/brownish looking cake. It has a better taste, but the romance around a coconut cake is shattered. (What to do with the egg yolks for all of us who think frugally – use them to make Bettina’s Chocolate Pudding.)

Set the egg whites aside. Put one cup organic turbinado sugar in a glass corning pot. Add one cup of water. Just pour in the water, don’t stir, don’t touch anything in the pot once you pour in the water and pour slowly so the water doesn’t splash around the pot as you add it.

Turn on the flame and let the water and sugar cook until the mixture becomes a simple syrup – which means until the mixture reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

When the mixture reaches 240 degrees, put the egg whites in your stand mixer and whip them until they begin to have soft peaks. When you reach that stage with the egg whites, gradually and slowly pour in the hot syrup. Be very careful with the syrup because it is really, really hot and can burn you severely if not handled properly.

You can add coconut syrup, vanilla syrup or any other kind of flavoring you would like at this point. Pour the hot syrup into the egg whites VERY VERY gradually and let this whip for a very generous length of time.

At this point you can do one of two things:

1. Once the egg whites have become substantial and hold their peaks looking white, fluffy and beautiful, take a small portion aside in a bowl and add your favorite preserves (ginger preserves make an unusual and very delicious touch), lightly mixing by hand. Use this mixture for the filling in your cake. OR – you can add lots of shredded coconut to this mixture – stirring by hand – and use that for the filling with the rest used to slather very thickly on the top and sides of the cake. And voila – you have your coconut cake.

2. If you prefer a more butter-cream icing, you can start adding pats of butter to the mixture as it whips and let it continue to whip until it has a very whipped creamy/butter-creamy look. This is delicious. Of course, it will take all of the butter in the house, plus some you will get from a quick trip to the store, –while your icing is mixing, — as you realize you don’t have enough butter in the house for this icing to come through properly, — but it will be worth the hassle.

Use this as you would the other icing – stir lots of shredded coconut into this icing; put a generous amount of icing on each cake layer; put the layers together and slather the rest on the top and sides of the cake.

Because these icings hold peaks nicely, you can really get imaginative in making the cake look spectacular.

Sometimes when adding butter to the whipped syrup and egg white mixture, your icing can break and when you look at it in the mixer you think you have a loser, but do not fear, just let the mixture keep on going – maybe as long as 15-20 minutes or longer and your icing will come through beautifully for you.

You can put this buttery icing on the cake, or you can sit in a corner with the bowl, making sure no one sees you, and eat until your heart is content. It roughly reminds you of a wedding cake. Whatever is left from this little act of gluttony can still be the icing on your coconut cake.

___________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Rev. Eddie McBride’s Sweet Potato Pie

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

Bettina’s changes

4 medium size sweet potatoes organic sweet potatoes
2/3 cup brown sugar organic turbinado sugar
4 Tablespoons Corn Syrup organic maple syrup
1 Can Condensed Milk organic heavy cream
2 Eggs organic eggs
4 Tablespoons Real Butter organic butter
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg all spices organic
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves
1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract powdered organic vanilla

1. Cook the 4 medium-size sweet potatoes until you can drive a fork in smoothly. Then de-skin the potatoes (while preheating the oven).

2. Preparing crust for pies: 1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 2) Let frozen crust thaw 10 to 20 minutes. Price bottom and around sides thoroughly with fork. 3) Bake in oven for about 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Then….Fill with Sweet Potato Mix.

ed.note: If you prefer to make your own pie crust it would probably be better and healthier. We have a recipe for one using organic flour in Bettina’s Cookbook.

3. Place Sweet Potatoes in bowl and blend with fork and electric blender, until smooth. In large bowl, mix sweet potatoes and remaining filling ingredients with blender until blended thoroughly blended. Pour mix into browned pie crusts.

4. Pre-Heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees; bake 30 additional minutes or until knife or fork inserted in center comes out clean. However, if you are going to use the Streusel Topping, at this point, only cook for 15 Minutes before placing topping.

Streusel Topping for Sweet Potato Pie (optional…you don’t need to do this part)

Bettina’s changes

1/2 cup packed brown sugar organic turbinado sugar
4 Tablespoons Butter organic butter
1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon organic cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped Pecans organic Pecans
1/2 cup chopped Walnuts organic Walnuts

Mix above ingredients in a bowl. Sprinkle Streusel over top of pie and bake for 15 to 20 minutes after Streusel Topping has been placed on pie or until knife or fork inserted in center comes out clean.

Who is Eddie McBride?
He is single, likes to eat and cooks out of necessity. He has a very respectable collection of recipes – most however, need little tweaks to keep the body healthy – as we did above.

He runs a non-profit corporation which works to help his community be its best self – primarily working with at-risk children. It is a 501C3 organization.

You can tell from this recipe that he is from the deepest south – note the whole cup of condensed milk and the pecans, even though there are a few New England walnuts spread around, probably from his time in the Northeast.

Rev. McBride is currently working to bring MIT’s Fabrication Lab (the FAB Lab) to Mississippi, January thru March, to expose his community to this form of technology with the goal of establishing a permanent FAB Lab in his area.

An MIT graduate and Harvard Divinity School student, Rev. McBride has ministered in Massachusetts and Upstate New York. He is now working in Mississippi. If you are interest in being a part of bringing MIT’s FAB Lab to Mississippi, he can be reached at revedmcbride@comcast.net.

__________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Making Connections | No Comments »

Can I Have a Recipe Please?

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

We just returned from a wonderful trip visiting our daughter and we stayed at one of your Bettina homes. We had the best coconut cake I have ever had in life. Please either send me the recipe – if you need to keep it secret – or put it on your Bettina’s Blog – which I read every Sunday morning the way I used to read the New York Times.

Thanks, We will definitely call you first. I have never had such an experience, even in very expensive hotels. Keep up your work, something is working.

_______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Guest comments, Reader Feedback | No Comments »

A Spectacular Breakfast

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

This dish can be the centerpiece of either breakfast or lunch. Of course, we prefer it served at breakfast. It is spectacularly beautiful. Upon presentation to your guests it looks ike an ivory rose with a yellow center. We believe this dish has its origins in Brazilian cuisine, but we can’t vouch for that.

To serve four people you will need the following:

4 eggs, separated
4 slices French bread
4 slices cheese
8 slices bacon, ham, sausages (your choice)
butter

All ingredients should absolutely be organic – the eggs, bread, cheese, butter and the rest need to be organic or the taste will change to washed out, pasteurized. We find people rave over our eggs. We don’t do anything special to get that great taste, we just buy organic eggs from farmers we know and have seen how they raise and feed their chickens. The net result is their eggs taste like eggs. Eggs from chickens grown in those apartment houses stacked on top of one another, fed horrific feed tastes like eating scrambled water and they pass the anxiety, pain and agony they suffered on to you, probably compromising your health in the process.

Set oven to 350 degrees.

You need a mixing bowl (from your stand mixer) into which you put the egg whites.
Crack the eggs and carefully separate the whites from the yolks.
Put the egg whites into the mixing bowl.
You need an egg carton for the next step.
Put the egg yolk back into its half shell and put the half shell into the egg carton to keep it upright and ready for use. Do this for all four egg yolks or however many you are using.
Spread butter on the slices of French Bread. We like the bread cut fairly thick because it gives a better base for these egg-creations.
Place one slice of cheese on each slice of bread. Set these aside on a buttered baking sheet.
With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they hold their peaks. Don’t over beat because you do not want these egg whites to be dry.
With a large wooden spoon, or other kind of utensil with which you are comfortable, take out about one fourth of the egg white (now a meringue) and mound this on top of the cheese.
Spread the meringue over the bread, butter and cheese to the edges so the bread is covered.
This should look like a small mountain – the middle of the bread and meringue should be higher than the rest.
With the back of your spoon, make an indentation in the center of the meringue so it can hold the egg yolk, making sure your meringue looks beautiful. Imagine how it will look once browned with ivory and brown tinges on the peaks.
Very, very carefully put the egg yolk into the center of the bread in the depression you’ve just made.
Put the baking sheet with the bread, butter, cheese, meringue and egg yolk into the oven and let it cook for about 10-15 minutes. 10 minutes if you like your egg yolk still runny; 15 minutes if you like your egg yolk cooked firm.
When done, put a meringue square on each plate, sprinkle with sea salt and cayenne pepper and serve with either bacon, ham or sausage around the merinque square arranged for maximum beauty.
If you do not like bacon, etc. just omit it. This dish carries itself off just as it is. It is light, very tasty and makes a wonderful breakfast by itself with fresh fruit and a breakfast dessert of some kind.

____________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Guest Requested Cheese Cake Recipe

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

This recipe was requested about July 1st or 2nd.

Sorry it took so long, but it was like pulling teeth to get this recipe. Not all of us want to share our most coveted secrets and apparently this recipe is very close to one of our host families. While I was able to get the recipe, I could not get the story behind it.

This is a lemon cheesecake with lemon curd topping:

There are three parts to this recipe

1) THE CRUST: Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

We use a deep dish glass pie plate to make this cheesecake. DEFINITELY NOT a shallow pie plate. Butter the pie plate and put it aside.
Use organic graham crackers or organic vanilla wafers or your favorite crunchy sweet cracker or cookie. We use organic graham crackers.
Put 2 cups organic graham crackers (or two packets) in a food processor or use a rolling pin to get them to the consistency of bread crumbs.
To this, add 4 tablespoons organic turbinado sugar and one tablespoon cinnamon and mix thoroughly.
Melt one stick of organic butter in a small iron skillet and add to the above mixture. If you are using a processor, pulse this mixture until it looks evenly saturated with the butter. If you used a rolling pin to break up your crumbs, mix thoroughly with a fork. We have the best luck with a food processor.
Put the crust mix in the pie plate and pat it gently all over pushing it up and around the pie plate until it is evenly distributed and you have a pie crust which fills the pie plate and goes up the sides to the top.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes at 325 degrees. Take it out of the oven and let it cool while you make the rest of the cheese cake.

2) THE CHEESECAKE FILLING:

For this you will need –

one 8-ounce package organic cream cheese (we use Organic Valley)

one 8-ounce package neufchatel Cheese (again Organic Valley)

one-half cup organic Turbinado sugar (we haven’t found a spectacular brand)

2 tablespoons ‘flavorganics’ French Vanilla Oil

If you prefer a purer vanilla, we suggest you use a powdered organic vanilla.

We don’t ever use vanilla extract.

the zest of one organic lemon

To get the zest quickly, use a carpenter’s rasp and rub it all over the lemon skin

until the yellow skin is gone and you are left with the white pith on the outside.

the juice of one freshly squeezed organic lemon

four large eggs

2 Tablespoons organic whole-wheat flour (optional)

4 ounces organic sour cream (again Organic Valley)

In your large Cuisinart mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, put the cream cheese, neufchatel cheese, and sugar. Beat at a medium speed until these ingredients are well mixed, fluffy and look a little like whipped cream.
Scrape down the sides of your bowl. Make sure the cheeses are melded together and you don’t have cream cheese on the bottom and a mixture of the two on the top.
Turn the mixer to low. Carefully and slowly add the flour and a “pinch” of salt. You really need to add salt at this point because if you don’t the cheesecake will have an empty taste, as though something is missing. Don’t add a lot or the taste of the cheesecake will change.
Add the eggs, one at a time, while continuing to beat the cheesecake to make sure they are properly incorporated.
Add the French Vanilla Organic Oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and sour cream.
Beat on a slow speed until these are incorporated.

Pour this mixture into the crust in the pie plate you have been cooling and put it in the oven at 325 degrees for about 40 to 50 minutes.

3) THE LEMON CURD

This makes the pie very special

For this you need:

One organic lemon Six organic egg yolks

One cup organic Turbinado sugar One stick organic butter

Take the zest from one organic lemon by using a carpenter’s rasp. Rub the rasp all around the lemon until you have removed the yellow skin and the only thing remaining is the white pith.
Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the lemon for its juice.
Whisk together the organic egg yolks, and organic turbinado sugar in a glass saucepan. No other kind of pot will do for this lemon curd.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula until the mixture thickens and coast the back of a spoon. This will take about 5 to 10 minutes. If you feel better using a thermometer, it should read 140 degrees (a candy thermometer).
Remove the glass saucepan from the heat and stir in the organic lemon zest, juice and organic butter. Stir until the butter melts.
Put the saucepan on the side and let the lemon curd cool until you are ready to use it.

When the cheesecake comes out of the oven, let it cool a few minutes and then pour the lemon curd over the top. I always take a little out of the saucepan before pouring so I can have it with tea on biscuits or whatever kind of great bread or cake is available. It is a small immediate reward for making this cheesecake which others will devour.

The process used to make this cheesecake is not much different from the millions of other such recipes in cookbooks, newspapers, etc. What is different about this cheesecake is the quality of the ingredients you use. They should ALL BE ORGANIC, which takes the taste way into the stratosphere and makes your taste buds remember it for a very long time.

In addition, the ingredients should ALL BE TOP OF THE LINE ORGANIC. No “organic” from stores which sell their own brand to trillions at a cut-rate price. If you look cloely and taste – that cut-rate price produces cut rate quality.

No substituting regular sugar for the organic sugar and no substituting organic sugar processed in ways other than “Turbinado” – the least processed sugar you can find. All of these small things make a great difference.

I often have a taste for my grandmothers’ cooking and only sometimes can reach her height. I’ve discovered I also have a taste for other folks’ grandmothers’ and mothers’ cooking which I’ve tasted over the years and when I made the same dishes in the same way it didn’t taste the same. I thought I was, unknowingly, doing something in my own way and missing their process. It has taken years of experimenting to discover the big difference is in the quality of the ingredients, not in the process.

My daughters when they were little and didn’t know how to cook could make a better cake than those my friends made, who were experienced cooks, but who made their cakes from a ready-mix box. Generally, it takes the same amount of time to make your cake from scratch as it takes to make it from a box mix. AND, stop lying to yourselves, the box mixes are generally all the same. Different marketing, different boxes with prettier or not so pretty labels, but inside the same ingredients – all ready to attack your health and well-being instantly after eating.

We are being chased by all kind of degenerative diseases. Watch the ingredients in everything you eat and be very careful with your diet and you will see an amazing change in your health and feelings of well-being.

If you balk at the cost of the ingredients, – eat less and enjoy it more. The bonus to you is prettier skin, a more svelte figure, improved health and probably a longer life.

ENJOY!

______________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Tekka Popcorn

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A really great snack – healthy and it tastes great.

To pop the ORGANIC corn, use an air popper so you don’t have to use oil.

Save on oil in the popping so you won’t feel guilty about adding butter at the end.

Pop the corn. While the corn is popping, melt one stick of organic butter in a small iron skillet

Once the corn has popped, slowly pour the melted butter over the corn; sprinkle the popped corn with a little salt and add a generous amount of Tekka.

Using two wooden spoons, one in each hand, go under the popped corn with the spoons – making sure the spoons are on opposite sides of the bowl, lift up and turn over the popped corn in continuous motions around the bowl until all ingredients are well mixed.

All told – this takes about 2 to 3 minutes to make and even less time to eat.

Haven’t heard of Tekka?

It is a condiment, generally made from hatcho miso, sesame oil, burdock, lotus root, carrot, and ginger root. It is sauteed on a low flame for several hours. OR it can be made of a number of root vegetables such as Burdock roots, carrots, ginger root, lotus root and more. They are generally stir-fried and boiled to a concentrated powder. Traditionally Tekka’s preparation time is about 16 hours (on a low fire), yet speedier preparation is possible.

If you don’t feel like popping corn, another great and quick snack is crackers, organic butter and Tekka. Or better still, while we were not able to sleep without our bread, butter and sugar with a little warm milk with cinnamon liberally sprinkled over the milk and a little organic turbinado sugar added – now, we have crackers, organic butter and tekka before bedtime, but we still have to have the warm milk This totally violates the macrobiotic laws, but it is much better than what we were doing and a very satisfying nighttime snack which puts us right to sleep.

If you can’t find Tekka, it is made by Eden Organics and you can reach them on the internet via edenfoods.com. by phone – 888 424 3336. Put ‘tekka’ in the search box and you will be able to order it at about $6.60 per bottle or $5.50 per bottle for a box. We ordered a box because we have been using it the way most people use salt. It gives a wonderful after-taste when you use it – in brown rice, pasta, bread baking, salad, and whatever else you can think of.

A little history? Tekka was specially formulated by George Ohsawa (1893-1966) the founder of modern macrobiotics. Mr. Ohsawa taught that modern refined foods, along with high consumption of animal protein and fat, are the major causes of modern degenerative diseases and that whole natural foods with their intrinsic healing properties can restore our health. Tekka was developed to help counteract the effects of refined sugar, refined grains, and other nutritionally deficient modern highly processed and refined foods.

According to the macrobiotic principles taught by George Ohsawa, tekka is a strongly contracting or ‘yang’ condiment, as is salt, yet offers qualities far beyond salt alone.

EDEN Tekka is made in the traditional manner. After aging hacho miso for three years it is ground into a smooth paste. Equal proportions of burdock root (cocklebur or Arctium lappa, Articum majus), lotus root (Nelumbo nucifera), and carrot are finely minced. The burdock is sautéed with unrefined sesame oil in cast iron cauldrons for several minutes. The carrot and lotus root are then added and sautéed several minutes. The hacho miso is added and evenly mixed with the vegetables and ground sesame seeds. Lastly, the mixture is sautéed over low heat for five to seven hours. During this long slow cooking process the liquid in the vegetables and miso evaporates completely, resulting in a dry, deep black, strengthening and energizing condiment. Tekka literally means ‘iron fire’.

_____________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Health | No Comments »

Ajaron’s Omelette

Monday, August 17th, 2009

to learn more about Ajaron click here

A wonderful omelette which has received rave reviews.

You need: 2 eggs per person

onion

green pepper

scallions

cheese (gruyère, jack cheese with jalapeño, or your preference of a melting cheese)

and/or whatever you have in the refrigerator that you want to add

(i.e. mushrooms, red onions, potatoes, asparagus, green peas, salmon, capers, etc.)

salt and cayenne pepper (we don’t recommend using black pepper on anything)

For optimal results, all of your ingredients should be organic and washed under cool running water (except for the cheese).

Before you start this omelette you must first deal with your attitude. Are you happy? singing while you work? In a giving, sharing, upbeat mood? If not, look in the cabinet for a few crackers, slice a little cheese to put on your crackers and forget about trying to make this omelette, it won’t be great.

Put on a bit of music that you like, sing to yourself for a little while, think beautiful thoughts, look through elegant magazines, read inspirational poetry out loud. If you’ve had an attitude adjustment, now try to make this omelette.

Be mindful of your utensils since the utensils you use will conduct your energy into the dish you are cooking. Wood will temper the Chi energies, while metal will more easily transmit them and plastic will poison because bacteria stays and grows more easily in the grooves and pits that increasingly occur as you use plastic.

To keep harmony in the kitchen, the center of the home, cook and clean as you work on your “chef d’oeuvre”. Organize yourself to clean your surfaces and cutting instruments in-between each vegetable, using cool water. When you are completely finished with the cooking process clean all utensils and surfaces with cool water and vinegar, which basically disinfects. Do not mix the vegetables until you put them into the pot.

Slice the onions. Be careful when you start to slice the onion that you slice them from top to bottom and not across the middle. You do this to maintain the yin and yang of the onion. Slicing the onion against the grain through the middle cuts the yin from the yang and doesn’t give you the kind of energy and nourishment you could otherwise get from this onion.

Take out the seeds and the ribs and slice the green pepper from top to bottom (for the same reason).

In a hot, iron, omelette skillet, put in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. For the more adventurous, you can use Ghee (clarified butter instead of oil). Count to 23 and then add the hard ingredients (i.e. onions, green peppers as opposed to ‘soft’ mushrooms). Sautè ingredients until the onion is transparent and slightly brown and the other ingredients are also nicely cooked. You may need to add extra oil or ghee to keep the cooking process going. After the hard ingredients are tender, add the soft ingredients. Thinly cut ingredients will cook faster.

Crack open the eggs and put them in a glass bowl. Whip a good amount of air into the eggs to make them lighter. Add salt and pepper to the eggs.

In the skillet, prior to pouring in the eggs, add salt, pepper and turmeric. Spread the veggies so they have an even and consistent thickness. Gently pour the eggs over ALL of the vegetables. Let sit for a few seconds, while you clean up your preparation dishes.

With one hand on the skillet handle, tilt the skillet up to a 45 degree angle. At the same time, with the opposite hand, insert a thin spatula at the outer edge of the omelette, gently moving and lifting the outer side of the omelette towards the center allowing the eggs to run into the space created by the spatula. The lift and tilt needs to go around the skillet (kind of like an amusement park ride). Keep the pan close to the burner so it continues to cook.

The stove process is finished when you have gone around the skillet, tilting and lifting, once or twice. NOTE: The length of time this takes depends upon the amount of eggs you are using and the size of the skillet. The top of the omelet should look runny. Turn off the burner. If you have smoke or popping sounds, you are overcooking your omelette. This should be done very fast.

Sprinkle cheese over the top, put the omelette in its skillet into the oven or under the broiler. Leave it in the oven for about a minute, until the cheese melts. Depending upon your ingredients, the omelette will puff-up giving it a Spanish omelet look (not runny). If you prefer a French omelette, don’t put it in the oven or under the broiler. Add grated cheese a minute before turning off the burner. The heat of the omelette will melt the cheese. Serve it straight from the skillet.

This omelette can be served hot or cold. Leftovers are delicious. To serve this omelette, slice it as you would a cake. Enjoy a wonderful and easy to make breakfast treat. If you have leftovers your lunch is already prepared. Don’t eat lunch? Add a salad, a great bread, dessert, lemonade and you have an elegant French dinner!

This is a French omelette with a Spanish twist.

____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

New Orleans Gumbo

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

A reader asked for a recipe and a cultural comment about New Orleans Gumbo.

The reader must know something about Gumbo to have asked specifically for ‘New Orleans’ Gumbo. There is cajun gumbo and creole gumbo, but top of the list is New Orleans Gumbo. Give me your family’s gumbo recipe and I will tell you if your family was upper, middle or lower class in Louisiana.

Tomatoes make a difference in making New Orleans gumbo. If you came from a lower-class family the gumbo recipe you have from your family will not include tomatoes. If your family had a bit of money and upper-class history, your family gumbo recipe will include tomatoes. How you make gumbo also tells whether your family lived “uptown”, “downtown” or “back-a-town”.

Gumbo basically differs by the family. One recipe for New Orleans Gumbo follows:

Before you start your gumbo, take one pound of shrimp (wild, gulf shrimp). Peel and devein the shrimp. Put the shells in a large pot covered with water and boil about an hour. Drain the resulting mixture and throw away the shrimp shells. This can be used as the liquid in the gumbo.

Chop or process – 2 onions, 3 green peppers, 4 stalks of celery. Sort of reminds you of New Orleans’ 1-2-3-4 cake – but that’s another recipe.

To make this gumbo use a large cast iron pot – no aluminum PLEASE! And glass doesn’t make as nice a gumbo

Put one stick of butter in the pot with about 1/2 cup organic, virgin olive oil. A new twist to gumbo with all of the new food ideas floating around is to replace the olive oil with virgin organic coconut oil. Some people like to add organic peanut oil. I don’t because I don’t want the taste of peanuts in my gumbo. It doesn’t add anything to the flavors. And that is not a put down of organic peanut oil because I wouldn’t fry chicken in anything else. I also would not use coconut oil because it also adds a pretty strong taste, which I don’t like – but to each his/her own.

Turn on the heat and let the butter melt. Put the ‘trinity’ – the onions, green peppers and celery in the pot and let the vegies cook until the onions wilt and the vegies begin to cook.

Put two tablespoons of organic, whole wheat, stone ground flour in the pot and cook the vegies and flour together until the flour begins to turn medium brown. This is not what you will find in other recipes, but this is my way. Most of the ‘cultural professionals’ will tell you to first make a roux – you can try that, but I like this way better.

What you add next depends upon your taste. Add thyme, oregano, sea salt, cayenne pepper to the flour mixture and continue to cook on a low heat. Add ham, andouille sausage, one can of organic diced tomatoes and the water from your boiled shrimp shells. Let this simmer until you see grease on top of the ingredients cooking in the pot. That has always been my sign that the gumbo, to this point, is done.

If you like okra gumbo, slice okra and add it to the pot. Once the okra has been added, don’t allow the gumbo to come to a boil. If you do, the okra will make the gumbo stringy because the okra will let out mucilage and ruin the gumbo. Keep it cooking, but under a boil – not even a small one.

Some people like to add shrimp boil to their gumbo. Some add sassafras. All kinds of food and herbs are added to gumbo depending upon the person cooking. As you experiment making gumbo you will find wonderful additions which create new tastes.

Gumbo is one food that is best created by a committee – or a family where it has been passed down several generations and all the aunts, uncles and cousins have had their say as to how it should be made. It gets better over time as the recipe changes with the cook.

When you are about twenty minutes away from serving the gumbo put in crabs and crab meat, shrimp and oysters along with the oyster juice. I wait until the end to add this because to cook oysters and shrimp too long they will turn hard and not be a great addition to this dish. If you are in New England and want to be a pretend creole, but need your New England heritage to colonialize everything, you might add scallops to the gumbo and replace the crabs with lobster.

Serve over organic brown rice – a rice as unprocessed as you can possibly find.

The best gumbo I have ever eaten was made by my grandmother. She gave me her recipe when I was about 21 years old. I was never able to make gumbo which came up to her standards, but over the years it has gotten better as I have moved away from the processes set out by the big “Creole” and “Cajun” cooks and gone with my own taste buds and memory.

If you have another recipe for gumbo or other stories behind your gumbo recipe, send us an email so we can make this recipe “Gumbo by Committee, an International Creation.”

_____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Dessert Breadsticks from a Reader

Friday, June 12th, 2009

What follows was sent to us by a bed & breakfast guest in response to the recipe for “Dessert Breadsticks”

“Thank you for this wonderful recipe and its story. I used to take my grandchildren to tea every Saturday afternoon and they loved it. After trying your recipe I have an alternate suggestion: with my Asian background I find I am not really into cinnamon, so I used your “Dessert Breadsticks” recipe with a mixture of nutmeg and sugar. I found that much more to my taste. Perhaps some people might like to mix the cinnamon and nutmeg, but first try it with just nutmeg and sugar.

I have been intrigued by your insistence on all things organic. I wasn’t there yet until I tried these breadsticks with organic sugar. They were great! I didn’t want to change to all things organic because I didn’t want to pay the higher price. Since we use very little sugar and these breadsticks were to be a treat for my now grown grandchildren, I opted for organic sugar and I don’t think I will ever go back. I looked at the two side by side on my kitchen table and wondered why I ever ate the white stuff in the first place. It just looks unhealthy. Thanks for all of your efforts, they are much appreciated. Keep up the good work.”

_____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Reader Feedback | No Comments »

Bread Sticks Dessert for Breakfast

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

These breakfast bread sticks are a really terrific after breakfast dessert which can be ‘knoshed’ on all day.

We discovered the recipe while having afternoon tea at Young Quinlan & Co., an elegant store in Minneapolis which, unfortunately, has been closed for a few decades. It was a great place to shop when my children were small because bribing them with tea at Young Quinlan kept them behaving like little angels.

(If you have a picture of the store, please send it and we will put it at the top of this blog. It deserves recognition and its place in our history. It is so sad that those kind of stores are moving fast into oblivion. I remember Keller Zander, Godchaux’ and many more from my childhood. They belong to my mind’s special “good” memory section because they all had something which allowed you to shop with your children and they would behave beautifully waiting for the store’s treat. My grandmother took me all over town and I was glad to go to some boring places because of the treat waiting at the end. I learned manners in the process because that special treat place always required good manners before and during whatever they offered, but it was always worth the effort. And the treat was not a chance to pick one thing out of a bowl full of over-sugared lollipops or their equivalent.

My daughters would go with me to Minneapolis Symphony concerts because after the concert there was a treat with a symphony name waiting for them at the restaurant they saw featured on the Mary Tyler Moore Show – the one in back of the elevator on which she threw up her hat. They could sit overlooking the elevator, eating perfectly wicked food and feel really special.)

For the dessert breadsticks you will need:

A loaf of sliced organic bread – or your own home-baked bread sliced. Your own home-baked bread is preferable, because it increases the great taste of these bread sticks and you can decide how thin or thick you want the bread sticks, which is great control for you to exercise.

lots of organic butter

organic sugar and cinnamon mixed together. More of one or the other depending upon your taste buds. Yes, our recipes require you to make choices instead of blindly following what other people tell you to do. Close your eyes and taste and see where that leads you. Probably into all kind of new things, new ideas, new life.

Start this recipe by melting a stick of butter (you will probably need more butter as you go along, but your inner health mechanism, activated by all the misleading marketing and public relations efforts against real butter, will go into high gear and you won’t enjoy the bread sticks as much if you start by melting a pound of butter all at once.)

next – you have an option – either cut off the crust of the bread for daintier breadsticks, or leave it on and cut each slice of bread into three long pieces. For this dish, I personally prefer the bread cut into a rectangle with the crust removed because then I can look forward to letting the crust of the bread go stale to be used for “Pauli Murray’s Bread Pudding” found on this blog.

Dip each one of these “sticks” into the butter and coat it thoroughly. Then drag it through the mixture of organic sugar and cinnamon.

Put the coated bread sticks on a steel or glass baking sheet, which has been buttered, so they don’t stick to the bottom (yes, yes, just get over your butter problem – anything organic from a cow which has been fed with organic feed and let roam in the sun in a pasture with good organically grown grass – is good for you. All those experiments have been done with meat and milk from cows that have been shot full of antibiotics, pesticides and goodness knows what else – so is the health problem all the “extras” or the meat and milk from the cow? WOW! Oprah – look at me, now that’s how to win over the cow people and the cow lobbyists. All of you cow jocks, to thank me, just send the check to the Bettina Network Foundation, Inc. and we will put it to good use.)

Bake for a long time at 225 degrees – a very low oven. We bake for about 40 minutes. You can bake longer or shorter times as your taste buds demand harder or softer breadsticks. These are not good soft, they must be fairly stiff to really enjoy the combination of the butter and the cinnamon/sugar coating.

_______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Tags: Oprah Winfrey
Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Oprah Winfrey, Preserving Family History and Stories | No Comments »

A Reader’s Ginger Tea

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

Thank you for a wonderful blog! I look forward to reading your new entries.

This tea is one I have made for years and enjoy immensely. I hope your readers have the same experience.

Use – of course, I wouldn’t defile your blog by suggesting anything other than “organic ginger root’. A pot that holds the ’25 cups’ you suggested in another blog is a good size for this. I don’t take the fancy route – I make the tea in a large stainless steel pot and put the pot in the refrigerator when its finished. Somehow, having stayed at one of your homes, I don’t think my stainless steel pot is going to gain me any followers and you folks would probably rather do this in a glass pot, but this is how I make the tea.

Use about three large pieces of organic ginger root. You can use more or less depending upon whether you want a stronger or weaker ginger taste. Slice them into fairly thin slices – although not too thin – and put them in the pot full of water. Put this on the stove with a tight cover and let it boil for a couple hours. When finished boiling, have a cup of tea and put the rest of the pot in the refrigerator. As you would like more tea – dip out a cup, heat it on the stove and enjoy until the pot runs dry.

Some people – southern people – will probably like this tea better with sugar. (Organic sugar only, or with a little honey – I like Tupelo Honey). Others – northern people – will probably like this tea better without sugar.

Leave the ginger in the pot until it is empty, then spread the ginger on a baking sheet, sprinkle with sugar and put it in the oven for 45 minutes or so and you can enjoy your leftovers as crystallized ginger.

Hope this is good payment for the enjoyment I’ve had reading your blogs.

Please don’t put my name on this – I like my privacy.

Thanks,

3/17/2009

FROM THE ONE WHO HOLDS THIS BLOG TOGETHER: Thanks to the reader for a wonderful tea and a great comfort during the winter months. We received this note in November and have tried it many times before putting it in the blog. It is fantastic. There is nothing like the ‘heat’ of this tea to make the winter cold go away. We tried it in a glass container with a spout on the end to be able to go into the refrigerator to turn the spout and get a cup of tea, but we couldn’t get it to work well, especially when we wanted to heat up several cups of tea. We were in the refrigerator with the door open for too long waiting for enough tea to be poured, so we relented and have a large, ugly, stainless steel pot in the refrigerator from which we regularly dip out cups of tea for ourselves and for guests.

_________________________________________________-

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Health | No Comments »

SNERT or "Erwtensoep" – A Breakfast Soupp*

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The National Dish of the Netherlands!!

We have many guests from the Netherlands visiting several of the Bettina Network homes. They have left an unmistakable mark on breakfast.

Snert has become a popular and much requested breakfast at the Bettina Network. So, we put our heads together, shared the different ways we’ve made Snert, adjusted for comments and suggestions from our Netherland guests and have come up with “Snert By Committee”, a successful bed & breakfast morning treat.

Ingredients:

pork short ribs two onions six garlic cloves

andouille sausage one green pepper one celery root

frankfurters four celery stalks sea salt & cayenne pepper

In a large pot of water (average pot for us is 25 cups) boil three large pork short ribs until they are tender – falling apart tender! This could take from 45 minute to 1 1/2 hours.

Take the ORGANIC short ribs out of the water and add four or more cups of dried green peas – according to your taste. If you like stronger tasting pea soupp*, use more. If you like a weaker more watery soupp* use less.

Put aside two onions, about 4 stalks celery, one green pepper, a celery root which has been peeled and cut into several pieces and six garlic cloves, which you mash before chopping. Put these through the food processor or cut into very fine pieces and add them to the soupp*.

YES, YES all organic!! No “natural”, “pesticide free”, or whatever other labels are being put on the food you normally buy for less money – make this ORGANIC! If you are going to pay more it should be for the real thing – not a marketing group’s substitute, which they are trying to bring along to move you away from “organic” but have you pay very close to the same price – lining their pockets and attempting to fool your health. They should beware of Mother Nature, she takes her revenge whenever you violate her laws!!!! Open your pocketbook – pay more, eat less, but only for the foods that are grown organically. Otherwise, it is just a way of raising the price of ordinary non-organic food making you think you have something special when the only thing ‘special’ about that ‘natural’ food is the extra money you have to pay for the same thing you bought months before that didn’t have those labels. If that pig hasn’t been fed an organic diet – leave him in the store!!!!!!! The same goes for those vegetables – especially the root kind.

Simmer the soupp* for about an hour.

Then add organic sea salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Let this simmer for 15 minutes to half an hour.

This soupp* is best eaten without the meat added. If you insist on meat in your soupp* you can shred the pork short ribs, having removed any fat and you might also add either andouille sausage or frankfurters. The Netherlanders seem to prefer the andouille sausage, while others prefer the frankfurters because they think this makes it ‘more authentic’. If you use andouille sausage – remember it adds ‘heat’ to the dish, which already has its share of cayenne pepper so be careful with your seasonings.

Simmer for another 1/2 hour after adding the meat and serve with wonderful home baked organically made bread with lots of butter.

You can close your eyes and pretend to be in the Netherlands country side (the ‘pretend’ countryside which you have now conjured up may be the only country left in the Netherlands).

This is one of those rare dishes that is comfort food for lots of people – even some who have never had this dish before.

A NOTE: instead of putting the pork short ribs back into the soupp*, you can make an excellent dinner by spreading a barbecue sauce on the ribs and putting them into the oven for 1/2 hour or so. Serve this with rice, your favorite vegetable and a salad and you have two meals.

Also notice there is no cornstarch, flour or other thickening agent in this soupp* – it isn’t needed. If you have leftovers you will find each time you reheat snert it is thicker than it was the last time you heated and ate a little. The ingredients used naturally thicken this snert.

*soupp – a word coined by the Bettina Network Snert Recipe committee for a breakfast dish that somewhat resembles soup, but has different qualities.

______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook, Health, Making Connections | No Comments »

Coconut Marshmaples

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

A variation on the Marshmaples for those who like coconut.

Once you have finished mixing the Marshmaples and before you put them into an oblong glass dish, add 1/2 cup shredded organic coconut to the mix and carefully stir until the coconut is dispersed throughout.

Then continue to finish the dish – butter the glass dish; put the Coconut Marshmaples into the dish spreading it so you will have an attractive finished product.

Let it sit several hours (I let it sit at room temperature) until it finishes gelling. You could let it sit overnight.

Cut the Coconut Marshmaples into squares. I use a very sharp paring knife and it cuts beautifully – cut vertical lines through the Marshmaples and then cut horizontal lines to get your square. Take each one out carefully and roll each square in shredded coconut. Put them on a cake plate to sit a few minutes before serving.

Heaven for Coconut lovers!!!!

____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Heavenly Marshmaples

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Once you’ve tried these you will never be able to go back to buying a marshmallow in any store.

They are unbelievable. You try to eat them, but they melt in your mouth before you can even begin to chew. They improve hot chocolate – with a heavenly taste – or – make a batch in a glass dish and pick up the entire slab of ‘marshmaples’ placing them on top of Japanese White Sweet Potatoes, which have been mashed with a stick of butter and a pinch of salt, and then put the entire dish in the oven for about three or four minutes. You will never again be able to eat Sweet Potatoes full of sugar topped with Marshmallows full of corn syrup and only God knows what else!

One cup organic highest grade Maple Syrup

One cup water

One cup raw organic turbinado cane sugar

2 packets gelatin

One/half cup water

pinch of salt

French Vanilla powdered flavoring

Put the Maple syrup, one cup water, sugar, salt in a glass Corning pot and let it come to a low boil, cooking until a candy thermometer reaches 240 degrees F. Do not stir this, simply put the above ingredients in the glass pot and bring it to a nice boil.

While waiting for your pot to reach 240 degrees, put the gelatin and one/half cup water in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer and let it sit. We prefer the Cuisinart 1,000 watt mixer.

When the sugar and syrup mixture has reached 240 degrees, take the pot to the mixer and turn the mixer to low. Pour the sugar/syrup mix very slowly into the mixer bowl taking lots of care because this mixture is HOT.

Once you have poured all of the syrup/sugar mix into the mixer bowl, cover your mixer with a dish cloth so you don’t ruin your kitchen. This will be liquid and it will jump out of the bowl all over everything.

The Cuisinart mixer has a wonderful plastic cover for the mixer bowl, but it has a small opening into which you can pour additional ingredients. That small opening is enough to allow the ‘marshmaples’ to fly all over the place so PLEASE don’t try this without covering your stand mixer. Those stand mixers which don’t have a cover for the top of their bowls could be a recipe for a day spent cleaning the kitchen.

Turn the mixer to high and let it RUNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It will take a good 10 to 15 minutes for the mixture to fluff up and turn white. When it does, add the vanilla and let it beat a few more minutes. Before you send emails asking the obvious question – no I don’t know why this brown maple syrup, raw very lightly processed sugar (which is also brown), turns white through this process, but it does!!

With organic butter, grease an oblong glass baking dish. Put this mixture into the dish using a spatula or very large spoon, since it will be too viscous to pour.

If you like ‘marshmaples’ about one and one/half inches high you will need two of these baking dishes. If you like them to the top of the baking dish, really big, then use only one.

Cover the baking dish with another oblong glass baking dish and set this aside until your ‘marshmaples’ gel – about 4 to 6 hours. If you want the traditional square shapes of marshmallows you can cut these either with a sharp knife or scissors into squares.

If you want something fancier, use a pastry bag with a large tip and squeeze them out onto a buttered steel baking sheet (yes, with organic butter), in whichever shapes you fancy. Again, let these sit for a few hours for the gelatin to take hold – if you can keep everyone away from them.

They are delicious now or later.

You can make special shapes for your hot chocolate; you can push out all kinds of stars, circles, puffs, etc. for whatever you choose. If you like shiny ‘marshmaples’ leave them alone. If you like matte finish ones pour a little organic powdered sugar in a dish and put the marshmaples’ in the powdered sugar to coat them. Careful with this step because you could be making them too sweet. You might experiment with using less sugar in the sugar/syrup mix if you want them to have a matt finish. Serving them on a cake platter, sprinkling powdered sugar inbetween and on top makes a lovely picture and you can get some of the same affect without using a lot of extra sugar.

The taste makes you want to slap whoever makes and sells those store bought marshmallows because look what you’ve been missing.

Please let us know what you think once you’ve made a batch.

______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Bettina’s Macaroon Cookies

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

An elegant cookie which takes just five to ten minutes of your time.

Great for using those egg whites you keep and don’t know how to use.

A good duo to make – chocolate pudding and these cookies. The pudding uses three egg yolks, this recipe uses three egg whites. You pass out from sugar shock when you finish tasting during the cooking process, but it is worth the short coma!

+ three egg whites

+ 1/2 cup organic turbinado raw sugar

+ pinch of salt

+ french vanilla syrup (we use flavorganics)

Put the egg whites into a mixer. You can also use a wire whisk, but we are never that energetic. In todays fitness world, using the wire whisk to beat the egg whites will probably substitute for a day at the gym. However, eating the cookies you bake takes that back so go and spend your time at your gym.

Beat the egg whites until they hold a peak. Then add the sugar, french vanilla syrup, salt and continue beating until the egg whites look wonderul, white and are nice and well beaten. Don’t ask what ‘well beaten’ means. Common sense and taste govern cooking – it is a cookie, not a scientific experiment which you will be asked to repeat exactly! And it is hard to mess up turning egg whites into meringue!

+ 2 cups organic dark chocolate pieces

more or less! We like chocolate and so do our guests. You might be more circumspect and want to actually taste the cookie!

Hand stir in the chocolate pieces, coconut, ground almonds, and/or anything else you want to add to the cookie mixture. (As time goes on you will find what you like best added to these cookies.)

Butter a cookie sheet by making rounds wherever you are going to drop a cookie. Drop the cookies onto the cookie sheet using a large spoon or, if you are really good you can put them in a pastry bag and squeeze them out into beautiful shapes. – bake at 225 degrees for about 40 minutes. They should be a beautiful ivory color when done – not white nor brown, but ivory!

Turn off the heat and let the cookies stay in the oven for an hour or more until they have dried out and can be easily removed from the cookie tray. If you have a hard time trying to remove a cookie – quit trying and put them back into the oven to dry a bit more. You know they are ready when you can easily lift them from the cookie sheet.

Enjoy!

We like these best with chocolate and coconut added and Amaretto syrup substituted for the French Vanilla syrup.

________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Bettina’s Chocolate Pudding

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

There are few dishes as comforting as chocolate pudding! And, there are even fewer desserts, which are easier to make and harder to fail than chocolate pudding.

We try to keep chocolate pudding in elegant pudding dishes in the refrigerator for those moments of high chocolate need or unexpected guests or after breakfast treat. We also find guests slipping down to the kitchen late at night to get a dish of chocolate pudding before bed.

+ 6 overflowing tablespoons organic cocoa powder

+ 2 tablespoons organic corn starch

+ 6 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup organic turbinado raw sugar

+ a pinch of salt (careful, don’t make this a big pinch, just enough to sweeten the dish-the way a little salt sweetens cantaloupe.)

Put the above ingredients in a saucepan and stir with a wire wisk until well mixed, no lumps and looking as though they have been sifted.

Put heat under the pan and add:

+ 2 cups organic milk

+ 1 cup organic heavy cream

+ 3 egg yolks, plus 2 eggs (organic eggs only, please)

stir constantly and slowly as you add the liquids until the above mixture begins to thicken and comes to a slight boil – don’t let it become a rolling boil – just bubbles around the edge of the pan.

Once mixture heats up add

+ 1 cup (or more to your taste) semi-sweet organic dark chocolate bits

mix this in with everything else and continue to stir.

When the mixture thickens, mix in

+ 1/4 to 1/2 cup organic butter (depends upon your taste)

+ One or two tablespoon of vanilla – or amaretto – or raspberry syrup – or etc.,

also depending upon your taste.

(These are the syrups sold, usually in the coffee section of the grocery store, to add to your morning coffee – yes, Virginia, they are organic. One brand is “Flavorganics”. There must be others. We like the result these syrups give over the extracts.)

Using a ladle or large spoon, pour pudding into the dessert cups or whatever you are using, top with a small saucer turned upside down, to cover, and refrigerate until cool and set. The saucers keep a coat from forming on top the pudding and saves on waxed paper. No need to recycle the paper, just wash the saucers after you’ve eaten the pudding!! A nice touch is to use saucers to match the dessert cups and use the saucer under the cup when serving.

For breakfast, this is nice served warm as a breakfast dessert, freshly made.

You can serve this – once cooled – with whipped cream on top and/or all kinds of other toppings.

You could also use three whole eggs instead of three egg yolks, but the resulting pudding will be lighter, very loose, jiggly and of a totally different texture than the Chocolate Pudding we have come to know and love. Also very nice, if you like that texture pudding.

A suggestion for use of the left-over egg whites would be to make ‘Bettina’s Macaroons’ – a five minute cookie.

__________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

LEMON TEA BREAD

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

A wonderful cake/bread which is delightful for breakfast and with tea anytime during the day – or try it with hot chocolate before bed.

8 ounce package organic cream cheese (Creole Cream Cheese makes this fantastic)
1/2 cup organic unsalted butter
1 and 1/4 cup organic Turbinado Raw Sugar
2 organic eggs rich in Omega 3’s
1 and 1/4 cup organic whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup organic whole wheat regular stone ground flour
1 tablespoon baking power
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 overripe bananas (organic – which you let ripen until the skins turn black)
the bananas are not a pretty sight on the side board while they over ripen,
but the taste and nutrition they add to this cake/bread are worth the eye sore
for a few days.

Sauce for After Baking

2 lemons
1/4 cup organic Turbinado Raw Sugar ( much better than powdered sugar for the
flavor and texture it adds to the bread.

A. Put butter in a mixer and let it whip until the butter becomes light and fluffy.

B. Add the cream cheese to the whipped butter and let it take a turn in the mixer
until the two ingredients have combined and are even lighter and fluffier.

C. Add sugar very slowly – Pouring it into the mixer turned on high until all three
ingredients are blended and look very light and fluffy.

D. Add the eggs and mix until well blended. Because at this point, heavy mixing does not increase the goodness of the bread, but too much mixing will make it very rubbery, be careful that you don’t overmix when adding the eggs.

E. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a glass bowl with a whisk until all the
ingredients are mixed together and look as though they are full of lots of air.

F. Mash the bananas until they are the consistency which you would try for if
you were going to feed them to a baby.

G. Add the flour mixture – alternating with the mashed bananas – and mix slowly
until well blended, being careful not to overmix.

H. Pour the batter into two buttered glass loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for about
40 to 45 minutes. Glass loaf pans because when you look at your cake/bread you can
readily see the amount of doneness and are not likely to let this cake/bread get too
dark and because we think glass bakes this cake/bread beautifully. We tried it in
black steel and it wasn’t as good.

We would NEVER bake this or anything else in Aluminum
no matter if its in the core surrounded by tankers imported from Iraq to protect us from the bad that we believe Aluminum puts into your food – we just wouldn’t take the risk. Life is
too short and too full of disease as it is – why risk adding more.

I. Test your cake/bread for doneness by inserting a thin knife into the middle, which
should come out dry. – OR – we just touch the top and if it doesn’t feel like
hot whipped egg whites, but closer to a substantial bread feel we know its done.

J. Make the sauce to pour over the hot bread when it comes out of the oven.
Scrape the rind off two lemons and put it on the side. Squeeze the juice out of
the two lemons and mix the juice and rind. Add the 1/4 cup sugar, mix and spoon
this over the lemon cake/bread as soon as it comes out of the oven.

K. Let your magnificent creation sit and cool and absorb the juice from the lemon mixture.

L. When it has come to a nice, barely warm state – cut and serve it with organic hot tea –
your favorite kind or try it with Bettina’s Red Tea (known in other circles as Hibiscus Tea.)

The person who gets the end of this Lemon Cake/Bread Loaf is indeed a happy camper!!!

_____________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

New Findings on Baking Bread

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Much to our surprise we discovered dramatic differences when baking bread by simply changing the oil we use. Different oil combinations will change the texture of the bread. By being careful what you add it also changes the goodness the bread delivers to your body. And – I will quietly say – it keeps you regular, which has to do good things for your immune system.

We started using Virgin Organic Coconut Oil in other recipes and decided to try it in the Bettina Bread Recipe. We first tried half butter and half VOCO. That was fantastic. The bread was light, but thick with no big holes as you slice it. Its consistency was amazing and the texture quite wonderful.It was really great when we tried 1/2 cup organic butter (one stick) and 1/4 cup VOCO. Totally amazing with 1/2 cup each, but that’s a stretch for a lot of you – only the dedicated need try those proportions.

Using organic apple juice plus the VOCO and organic butter produced a much lighter bread and still that wonderful texture.

Throw in raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, organic turbinado sugar – wow, how fabulous with coffee in the mornings. Put some organic butter on that bread and it warrants quiet time to enjoy a bit of heaven!

No more white flour – water – and salt bread for us. Just think of the nutrition our ancestors got from bread. No wonder it was called the “staff of life.” Didn’t understand that saying until we started experimenting to produce a loaf of bread that was great tasting and good for us.

___________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Posted in Bettina's Cookbook | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘Bettina’s Cookbook’ Category

Ginger Pralines

Creole Breakfast Cake

A Bettina Coconut Cake

Rev. Eddie McBride’s Sweet Potato Pie

Can I Have a Recipe Please?

A Spectacular Breakfast

Guest Requested Cheese Cake Recipe

Tekka Popcorn

Ajaron’s Omelette

New Orleans Gumbo

Dessert Breadsticks from a Reader

Bread Sticks Dessert for Breakfast

A Reader’s Ginger Tea

SNERT or "Erwtensoep" – A Breakfast Soupp*

Coconut Marshmaples

Heavenly Marshmaples

Bettina’s Macaroon Cookies

Bettina’s Chocolate Pudding

LEMON TEA BREAD

New Findings on Baking Bread

Blog Search

We are the Bettina Network

Categories

Archives

Bettina’s Lifestyle Community