This year I made soft gingerbread cookies as edible ornaments and we’ve put some on the Christmas tree. Let see how long they’ll last there . I was looking for this type of gingerbread for a while and found the recipe in Richard Bertinet’s book “Crust”. These cookies are softer and thicker than traditional gingerbread. Typically, they are baked in continental Europe – this recipe is of Czech origin.

Soft Gingerbread Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

• 425g plain flour
• 100g icing sugar
• 125g softened butter
• 100g honey
• 1 large egg (55g shelled weight)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spices
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• pinch of salt

Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt

Method:

1. Prepare the egg wash one hour before you’ll glaze the cookies so the foam settles.
2. Put flour, icing sugar, bicarb soda, spices and salt into a bowl and mix well. Add wet ingredients and knead into soft dough. Cover and let it rest at room temperature for about 15-20 minutes.
3. Tip the dough onto a floured surface and roll out 5 mil thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes.
4. Glaze the cookies with the egg wash prepared earlier and let them dry. Then repeat the glazing once again. It’s important to leave the cookies to dry between glazing as it produces shinier look.  On the top picture I’ve glazed rounds twice, but other shapes once thickly to save on time. The round cookies look nicer and shinier!
5. If using cookies as edible tree ornaments or gift tags, make a hole with a skewer or piping tip (see photo).
6. Once dry after second glazing, decorate the cookies by dragging lines across using fork or skewer. You can also use dry fruit or nuts to decorate gingerbread.
7. Bake cookies on greased and floured baking trays for about 18 minutes in moderately hot oven (160 C)
8. Cool on a wire rack before storing or threading ribbon.

Wishing you a happy Festive Season and a prosperous New Year 2012!

The other day I spotted a jar of applesauce on the shop shelf. I can’t remember ever buying one, as it is so easy to make homemade applesauce. The first time I ate applesauce was in Germany (Apfelmus) where it’s traditionally served with roast pork or potato pancakes.

Applesauce is basically cooked and pureed apple.  It can be eaten warm or cold, served with savoury or sweet dishes. Homemade applesauce is a quick and easily digestible baby food. Use organic apples if possible, and omit sugar, lemon and spices if cooking for the little ones.

How to make Homemade apple sauce

You can use any apples to make homemade applesauce, but I prefer sweet ones: they cook faster and there’s no need to add sugar. Different varieties of apples can be mixed. You can make a small batch using two apples or a few kilos.

1. Peel and core the apples and cut into smaller chunks
2. Fill the pan to a depth of 1-2 cm with water (a bit more if making a large batch or like thinner sauce). Add cut apples
3. Cover with lid and bring to boil, then reduce the heat to low
4. Simmer the apples checking the water evaporation and softness occasionally. Depending on the apple variety and the amount, it will take about 10 – 20 minutes.
5. When the apples have cooked, remove the pan from the heat, let cool slightly and puree with a stick blender. For a chunky applesauce, use a potato masher.

Applesauce variations

Our family loves the homemade apple sauce in its simplest version with no sugar, no spices. Just pure, usually organic, applesauce. For an applesauce with a bit of a twist you can add:

• sugar if you prefer sweeter applesauce or using tart apple varieties
• ground cinnamon
• cinnamon stick (cook with apples and discard before pureeing)
• mixed spice / nutmeg / cloves
• lemon peel

Homemade applesauce will keep in the fridge a week or two. It’s suitable for freezing. For longer keeping, jar the applesauce in the same way as jam. Sterilise the jars in boiling water or in the oven, pour hot applesauce into hot jars and close the lid immediately. Store at room temperature.

Serving suggestions

Homemade applesauce tastes equally good warm or refreshingly cold from the fridge. Our favourite way of eating applesauce is spread on bread with tahini (ground sesame paste). We also love it on pancakes, with rice pudding or mixed with whipped cream. Applesauce goes well with pork or duck roast. And of course, it’s a nutritious and tasty apple puree for babies!

By now it is very well known that artificial food colourings are linked to kids behaviour problems. So why not give our kids the best start in life and avoid artificial additives as much as possible. It’s not only food colouring bottles that we need to throw away, but also to start to look at the ingredients lists and eliminate artificial additives as much as realistically possible. The post Food additives: What is your daily dose? explains food additives in more details and the Food Additives Table in pdf format there is free to download .

How to make natural pink food colour

The nature gave us foods in so many beautiful colours, yet somehow it became a norm to colour it artificially to “enhance” the appearance, especially food marketed towards kids. Often colour is used to make food more appealing as there are no ingredients of natural origin. My personal preference is to skip any colourings and let the fresh and natural ingredients show their true colour.  Exception, however, is our kids birthdays or special occasions. In that instance, I give in, but take time to make homemade, natural and often organic food colours. As we have a gorgeous girl, pink is a favourite and easiest to make.

Homemade natural pink colour: step-by-step with photos

Beetroot is one of my favourite veggies: it’s loaded with nutrients, can be eaten raw or cooked and has vibrant colour – perfect for food colouring.  Beetroot juice is also great for colouring homemade natural playdough.

Here’s how to do it:

Finely grate cooked or fresh beetroot (on the photo below the beetroot is cooked)

Press through a fine sieve to extract the juice.

I’ve used it here to colour royal icing

Add a small amount of beetroot juice.  You can always add more if necessary. The royal icing will turn from stiff peaks to soft.

If you need runny royal icing for “flooding” add more beetroot juice or water if you happy with colour depth.

Here I’m using it to make white and pink butterflies.

And let them dry… For the assembled butterflies see the top photo.

The cake and cupcake icing below are also coloured using beetroot juice. The pink is slightly different as it’s mixed with yellowish crème patisserie producing a vintage shade of pink.

Colours other than pink

Our son isn’t that much into pink, so there are other natural food colours:

• yellow: turmeric
• gold: turmeric and cocoa
• green: powdered green tea
• reddish pink: raspberries (can turn blue or gray if food you’re colouring is acidic)
• purple/blue: blueberries, blackberries
• brown: cocoa or chocolate

There are other possibilities, like spinach and avocado for green, but suitable for savoury dishes.  Or use flowers (as above) and herbs (mint, parsley) for a nice contrast.

Please share with us your favourite ways of using nature’s rainbow!

This November Sustainable Echo is turning two! To celebrate its second birthday, I decided to make a healthy vegetarian raw salad we named after our blog, instead of a birthday cake. If only our kids would trade their birthday cake for something like this .

As a 2 year old baby, SustainableEcho.com is quite patient, easy to look after and doesn’t even mind playing second fiddle to its younger sibling MakeBread.com.au. However, as with any baby, this one enjoys occasional attention and so do our readers, too!

Sustainable Echo salad recipe

This easy salad recipe was born as a way to feed our kids raw beetroot from our container garden.  Usually I would boil or roast beetroot and marinated it in some vinaigrette and fresh garlic. Obviously, most fruit and veggies contain more goodness when consumed raw, thus my brainstorming.  I’ve tried to add a sweet veggie and fruit that would go with it and came to this combination (use organic ingredients, if possible):

• 1 raw peeled beetroot
• 1 large carrot, scrubbed or peeled
• 1 apple, peeled of not organic
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Method, easy as 1-2-3:

1. Grate apple, carrot and beetroot by hand or in a food processor.
2. Juice 1/2 lemon and pour over grated salad
3. Mix well (optional)

Simple!

You don’t need any seasoning, trust me. If you wish, you might skip mixing and leave the ingredients arranged in a bowl next to each other and pour the lemon juice over. That way the salad will be really colourful. If mixing, the carrot and apple will turn red as on the photo on the top.

As a variation, you can add yogurt, mayonnaise, change the ratio of ingredients or simply change the apple type from sweet to a tart tasting one to play with different tastes.

The Sustainable Echo salad is simple, quick, easy, healthy, raw, nutritious, vegetarian, tasty, but the best bit is not all the previously mentioned, the best bit is: our kids love it!

It’s the middle of the winter here down-under and what better way to warm up than with a hot soup.  Our all time favourite is this veggie soup with semolina dumplings.  Very popular throughout Europe, semolina dumplings (Griessnockerln, Griesskloesschen, griz knedle) can be added to any clear broth soup.  I’ve got this recipe while living in Germany.

Semolina dumplings recipe

Semolina dumplings are easy to make.  Use coarse semolina for this recipe, as dumplings made from finely ground semolina tend to be dense and cook slower.  Make the mixture when the soup is almost ready.

• 50 g butter at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 100 g coarse semolina
• salt and white pepper to taste
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• flat leaf parsley or chives, finely chopped (optional)

Method

1. Beat the butter until pale and fluffy
2. Add egg, mix with butter
3. Pour in semolina, season, add herbs if using and mix until all comes together
4. Dip a spoon into a hot soup or broth then take some of the mixture and slide it into a simmering soup.
5. Repeat until all the mixture is used.
6. Cook for about 10 minutes, then turn the heat off and let it stand covered for further 5-10 minutes.

If I’m in a hurry, I make larger dumplings, as on the photo above.  For smaller semolina dumplings use a teaspoon or make little balls out of the mixture.

Bon Appétit!

At the market last weekend, fennel bulbs and pumpkins were everywhere.  That means cold weather is upon us.  June 1st is the official start of winter in Melbourne, although the temperature is still in the pleasant range.

Pumpkins are so versatile: you can boil them, roast them, make sweet or savoury dishes.  They keep well for a long time.  Not only do they taste good, they are packed with goodness of alpha and beta carotene, potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamins A and E and other nutrients with only 15 cal per 100 grams raw.  And if that is not enough, pumpkin seeds are nature’s wonder food.  Read more about the seeds.

What do I make from pumpkin?  Pumpkin soup, pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin scones, roasted pumpkins, the list is long.   One of my favourite pumpkin recipes is pumpkin and fennel salad.  There are several version of it, but I like this one with the sesame flavour.  If sesame isn’t the flavour of your choice, omit sesame seeds and oil and add roasted pumpkin seeds.  This healthy vegetarian salad can be eaten warm or cold.  Serve as a side or a light main meal with some freshly baked bread.

Pumpkin and Fennel Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut pumpkin or small Kent pumpkin
• 1 fennel bulb
• Salad leaves of your choice
• 2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• A drizzle of sesame oil (omit if using pumpkin seeds)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon honey
• Salt and white pepper to taste

To make salad:

1. Cut and peel pumpkin into chunky cubes or slices.  Reserve the seeds (see here for roasting instructions)
2. Roast pumpkin in the oven or cook in a heavy skillet
3. Remove outside layers of fennel bulb and slice thinly on a mandolin (white part only)
4. Mix olive oil, apple cider vinegar, orange juice, honey, salt and pepper.  Heat if serving salad warm
5. Arrange salad leaves (I’ve used young rocket, green salad and beetroot leaves)
6. Top with cooked pumpkin and sliced fennel
7. Sprinkle sesame or pumpkin seeds
8. Drizzle with dressing

Bon Appétit!

In my previous post on butter, Butter vs. Margarine, I wrote about why butter is a better option.  As I mentioned at the end, there is one thing about butter that isn’t so handy: it’s solid and hard to spread directly out of the fridge!

Types of butter

Butter is mostly made form cows’ milk.  In the past, cream was collected from the raw milk and then churned.  This was and still is the best butter, also known as raw cultured butter.

Cultured butter in the shops isn’t made the old-fashioned way.  It’s rather made with pasteurised cream and cultures are added to finished butter.

Unsalted (also called continental) butter is made as above without bacterial cultures added.  Salted butter as the name says, has salt added.

Organic butter is made with organic cream without any additives.

The best choice would be homemade organic raw cultured butter. However, unless you have your own cows or access to organic raw milk, it’s hard to get it in the shops.

How to make your own butter

As said above, to make butter from scratch you need raw milk (lots of it!).  Alternatively, you can buy cream and make your own.

Use cream with the highest fat percentage, 35% plus.  Pour it into a deep bowl and using a mixer beat until stiff.  Continue beating until some liquid starts to separate and cream turns yellow.   It will take some time.  When butter forms, press it together to expel liquid, put in a container and refrigerate.

In my opinion, this method isn’t worth the time and money.  When you calculate the cost of cream + time, butter is cheaper.  Though it is good to know the method in an emergency:  you need butter for a cake let’s say, the shop is closed or too far to drive but you have some cream in the fridge!

Soft Butter Spread Recipe

I’ve seen in the shops some butter spreads claiming to be spreadable.  They have oils added or water content increased.  So I decided to try it at home hoping that butter and oil won’t separate– it worked!  Butter naturally contains lecithin.  Lecithin is emulsifier – a substance that binds water and oil.   The first time I made soft butter spread was about 2 years ago.  Since then I’ve played with different oils and ingredients.

For the basic recipe you need a quantity of softened butter and oil of your choice (try to use good quality cold pressed extra virgin oil).  Also, I like to add water – it makes the spread a bit brittle, but there are fewer calories.

• 250g softened butter (or 2 sticks of butter for our US readers, that equals to 227g)
• ¼ cup oil
• ¼ cup water

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix using a handheld stick blender, mixer, food processor or a whisker until all the ingredients are blended together.  The spread will be shiny but turn dull when refrigerated.   This recipe yields about 370g butter spread.

One of my experiments was to mix yoghurt instead of oil – to make a sort of soft cultured butter spread.  The result was interesting: instead of combining together, it started to separate a bit and to form little pockets of liquids, as when you make butter from cream!  Nevertheless, the taste was really good.

Note:

• You can omit water and add ½ cup oil only
• On the photo, it looks like 1 cup of liquids added, but the level increased when butter was added
• Water doesn’t only produce the best result, but it’s possible to make it as well
• Use this recipe as a guide only: increase or decrease the liquids to have firmer or softer spread
• While butter spread is still soft you can add herbs, garlic or other flavourings.

Nutritional Values of butter and butter spread

Here are nutritional values of each, butter and butter spread compared, per 100g using macadamia oil and above quantities:

You can see the change in decreased energy and saturated fat fields.

I predominantly make soft butter spread to have a spreadable butter in the morning, rather than out of worry about the saturated fat or calorie counting.  Long before we found about nutritional panels and kilojoules, people knew that  foods rich in calories shouldn’t be eaten by kilos.

My favourite soft butter spread is the one made with extra virgin olive oil and with yoghurt.  Our kids like milder tasting oils like macadamia.

Please share with us your thoughts about soft butter spread!

Summer school holiday is over.  The school started on Monday and  kinder is back to full hours next week.  For me it means back to lunchboxes, school -kinder-home triangle, but also back to writing in peace and quiet .

Sandwiches are on the menu again.  But, what to put on the bread: butter or margarine?

The butter vs. margarine debate is always a hot one.  For our family it is butter that’s winning.  Having said that, we don’t consume a lot of it and butter is not automatically in every sandwich and on the table every day.  Instead it might be avocado, tahini (ground sesame paste), sour cream or just a lot of veggies as a base.  I cook with butter, too.

Why butter is a healthier option

Butter has earned a lot of negative press due to being high in saturated fat.  The same happened to coconut oil.  In fact, coconut oil has anti-viral and many other healing properties.  And butter?  Well, it seems we have gone full circle and began to realize some positive facts about butter.  Here are just some of them:

• Butter is completely natural
• Butter is rich in natural vitamin A, also good source of vitamins D, E, K
• Also contains mineral selenium, an anti-oxidant, iodine and lecithin
• Linoleic, lauric and butyric acids play important roles in our body and butter contains them all
• And yes, it contains cholesterol – a very important ingredient for brain development, cell elasticity and healthy intestines.   Children especially need it in the diet!

Here are just some of the health benefits of eating butter.  If you aren’t convinced so far, please do some research on the topic.

Why margarine should be avoid

What is margarine and what is in it?  Margarine spread is oil in the base, mostly processed, fully or partly hydrogenised (chemical process) to solidify it into the spreadable form.  It contains not so healthy polyunsaturated fat and bad trans-fatty acids, the latter formed during the process.

In addition, most margarine spreads contain preservatives, usually preservative 220, artificial colours and flavours.  Before you eat it again, read the ingredients!

In the past decades, as the consumption of butter and other saturated fat decreased in favour of low fat diet, margarine and highly processed oils consumption – cholesterol, cancer and heart problems increased.

Danger of Polyunsaturated Highly Processed Oils

Vegetable oils are healthier option?  Well, vegetable oils aren’t all made equal.  On the healthy side there are cold pressed extra virgin oils, on the other highly processed oils containing high percentage of polyunsaturated oils.  Polyunsaturated oils are very unstable when exposed to heat, oxygen and moisture and become rancid.  Rancid oils contain free radicals that cause damage to cells, DNA, etc.

About 30% of calories in the modern age diet come from polyunsaturated oils.  Instead it should be only a few percents.  So watch for the amount of polyunsaturated fats, especially in processed and fast foods.  Processed oils are cheaper and widely used in the food industry. For frying, coconut oil, butter and animal fats are better option.

One Unpractical Thing about butter

There is only one thing about butter that isn’t handy:  it’s too hard to spread directly from the fridge.  But there is a way to overcome that: soft butter spread.  Stay tuned, the recipe is coming in the next post, as well as types of butter available and how to make your own butter.

It’s December the 23rd!  Where did all 22 days disappear all so suddenly?  It feels like yesterday when I filled the advent calendar for the kids and took the picture below to post on the 1st!

Nevertheless it was a VERY busy period.  Not only there were numerous Christmas parties, concerts, picnics, functions etc at school, kinder and work, but also I’m working on my new business Make Bread – Melbourne.  A busy but exciting month!

The Christmas Tree dilemma

Our Christmas tree hasn’t been decorated yet.  Today’s weather forecast is 36 C (Christmas in Australia!) and we’d rather spend the afternoon on the beach.  We’ll do it tomorrow on Christmas Eve as it was done traditionally in many European countries in the past.  As kids we were allowed to decorate the tree once all the preparations and baking was done.  It was seen as the icing on the cake.

This year my husband and I had a discussion about a real Christmas tree and the decision was made to pull the plastic one again.  Cutting a beautiful tree that costs $60+ and throwing it two weeks later isn’t something that appeals to us.

A few years ago, we bought a lovely potted Christmas tree as this is in my opinion the greenest option.  Once the Christmas passed, we took the tree outside and on one 43 C (109 F) day, it was completely scorched!  The poor tree ended up in the compost bin.  My grandpa would go to the forest and cut a Christmas tree in order to thin out overcrowded pines, then chopped it after Christmas and us it to smoke the meat during the winter.  But that was in Europe.  In Australia, it makes more sense to decorate a eucalyptus tree

So rather than destroy another tree this way or that, we’ll fake it yet another year.

Christmas Baking

Christmas baking is something I really enjoy.  However, this year I didn’t do a lot of it, just a few batches of cookies.  November was unusually hot, I was focused on Bread Making Classes and December came all too suddenly.  After so many years Down Under, summer Christmas surprised me again.

The above cookies are made using the same recipe: for the crescents I used almonds, the round ones are made with ground walnuts.  They are my old favourite -  quick, easy and could be prepared long before Christmas.   Here is the recipe:

• 280 g flour
• 200 g cold butter cut into cubes (or cooking margarine for dairy free option)
• 80 g sugar
• 100 g ground nuts (my favourite are hazelnuts)
• 1 egg white (for egg free cookies, add 2 tablespoons of water and/or vanilla essence)
• icing sugar mixed with vanilla sugar

1. Whiz flour, butter, sugar and nuts in the food processor.
2. Add egg white or water and pulse till the dough just comes together.
3. Tip onto lightly floured surface and knead quickly .
4. Rest in the fridge for about 1 hour.
5. Shape into crescents or your preferred shape and bake on the tray 15 – 20 min on 180 C.
6. While still warm, dip  into icing sugar.
7. Keep cookies in the airtight container.

I couldn’t resist but make these Choc-cherry cupcakes: cherry season coincides with Christmas and they are a part of the Australian Christmas tradition.

Forget Cherry Ripe!

This year I skipped making chocolate truffles or anything chocolate coated or decorated: in Melbourne we can have anything between 18 and 40+ degrees Celsius on Christmas.

Christmas Presents and Wrapping

Each year we try to buy less presents.   We’ve agreed with friends not to buy presents for each others kids.  For our children it will be something small (I can’t tell what as our son usually reads the posts).  Maybe I could post pics of our presents next year .  At my husband’s work Kris Kringle was scraped in favour to giving a donation to a charity.

I like to give homemade presents that are consumables like cookies, soaps, preserves etc. This year being so busy I’ve skipped this tradition and bought a few little presents for teachers.   For wrapping I used recycled copy paper and warping paper.  Instead of ribbons I used raffia and paper twine.

Handmade Christmas Cards and Tags

Making handmade Christmas cards and tags takes time, but  I really enjoy making them and feel they are so special. I tend to recycle cardboard, old Christmas cards and pressed plants to make them.

Here are my simple Christmas gift tags, made from pressed fern and recycled old cards:

This handmade Christmas card has been made using homemade glue and all natural parts. The bonus: when Christmas is over, toss it into the compost bin, its fully compostable!

Hope you’ve enjoyed a snapshot of Sustainable Eco’s Christmas!

To all our readers that celebrate Christmas now or in January we wish you a happy and safe festive season!  If you aren’t celebrating Christmas, we wish you a happy and prosperous New Year 2010!

We are taking our summer break and will be back refreshed in January.

This inspirational video was created by Make Bread.