Hannah's Heartstrings

Here's a few reviews for some magazines I've been reading lately! :D Check them out! Enjoy...

Eating Well (www.eatingwell.com)
Very good articles and recipes. A lot of ads, but on the whole, I’d say worth the price.

Vegetarian Times (www.vegetariantimes.com)
I wouldn’t buy this one again. Yes, some good recipes, but there is a very strong “animal rights” message throughout the whole magazine that I find disturbing and would rather not knowingly support.

Back Home Magazine (www.backhomemagazine.com)
I like this one. Tons of great information on farming, raising animals, “green living” (i.e., solar energy, etc.), with a seemingly good outlook and without the “in-your-face” animal rights message.

Organic Gardening (www.organicgardening.com)
Very good information, articles and recipes. Not too “green”, just good gardening/farming/animals stuff presented in a healthy, organic perspective.

NGJ (www.nogreaterjoy.org)
Though geared towards child training, marriage and family, this great magazine never fails to have something in it about herbs, gardening/farming or some other form of outdoor or nutritional information. Also, two of the Pearl family’s other ventures, The Bulk Herb store, and Shoshanna’s Herbs, are great places to buy herbs and herbal remedies from.

In progress.

"The Farming Game", also in progress.

Finished product.

Charlie and I sat down afterwards and figured out the approximate cost of our entire meal. We figured, including all our veggies, the meal cost about $9.72 to make. :D And that feeds 7 people, with leftovers.

So...inspired by my post yesterday, I decided to make pizza today! :D I used all millet flour, just to see how it worked. It make Beee-yoo-ti-full dough, but being that it has not gluten in it, it was slightly hard to roll out, because it doesn't hold together real well, and doesn't stretch like wheat dough. It was easier to work with that rice flour dough, but still a bit difficult.

Besides that, it tasted good! I still like the taste of the rice flour, but the millet has such a pretty color! It's more yellowy, almost like corn.

And alas, my siblings were starving and waiting with forks and knives when I pulled out the pizza, so I spared them a photo shoot. Next time... :P

Pizza Crust
2 cups water
1 ½ Tbsp. arrowroot
2 Tbsp. olive oil
5 cups flour (rice or millet)

Dissolve arrowroot in the water, and add the remaining ingredients. Mix until a dough ball is formed. If it is too dry, add a little more water; if too wet, add a little more flour.
If you use rice flour, the dough will not hold together for rolling like traditional pizza dough. So what I found that works is making a deep dish style by pressing the dough into an oiled 9x13 pan and piling the toppings on. :)
Millet flour holds together much better, though at the moment of typing this, I haven’t yet made an all-millet pizza.

Our special blood-type pizzas:

For A’s and B’s: mushrooms, onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil spread on the bottom, with Mozzarella cheese, cooked crumbled turkey, oregano, paprika, basil, parsley.

For AB’s and O’s: mushrooms, onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil spread on the bottom, tomato sauce, Mozzarella cheese, cooked crumbled turkey, oregano, paprika, basil, parsley.

We had a feast today.

We put pure olive oil in our deep fryer, sliced up various vegetables super thin: beets, parsnips, onions, butternut squash, kale, sweet potatoes, and white potatoes.

And we had veggie chips.

We tried to find veggie chips at the store. But they all---ALL---had something bad in them. Even the ones I thought were the best had maltodextrin in them. :(

So we made our own. They were delicious. :)

Sadly I don't have a picture. They were eaten too fast.

Here is a recipe I created for blueberry muffins this week! It was totally an experiment, and I was not sure if they'd be flat or not, but they worked great and are just perfect.



Blueberry Muffins

3 cups brown rice flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup honey
splash of vanilla
2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. arrowroot
dash of salt
1 cup frozen blueberries (I put in a bit more than a cup) :)
2 cups water
6 TBSP. olive oil

Mix it all together. I didn't use muffin papers, becaseu I didn't have any, so I just oiled the muffins tins and it worked. The thing is, you have to re-oil them with each batch or they stick slightly. Bake at 375* for about 15 minutes. They come out of the tins best if you let them cool first.
Good served warm. Better served refridgerated. :D

Hey there! Welcome to my kitchen! I'm really excited to be able to present you all with this glimpse into one of my most important daily activities...the creation and preparation of food. So come along, pull up a chair and stay for dinner!!

p.s. By the way...my name isn't really Bethie. It's Hannah Elizabeth. Bethie is a nickname given to me by one of my very dear friends. :)