When It Gets Hot in Chicago: Make Tempeh!

Tempeh image from Wikipedia.

Today, a guest post from Nancy Klehm, writing to us from Chicago, in the midst of an epic drought and heat wave. Here’s Nancy:

A Drought of Inspiration

Until last week, we were at 12% of our normal precipitation for our eight month growing season. This, plus extreme temperatures, made us delirious when some humidity blew south from Canada and was sticky enough to grab ahold of some clouds and build them until they spilled rain. And yet, the GM soy is limp and the GM corn is dwarfed and tasseling weakly. The effects of which will impact all of us who shop and drive cars.

And frankly, we’ve been spoiled by the drought and heat – it’s always sunny and dry (just like L.A. and Phoenix!) no rain to spoil your bike ride, BBQ, or outdoor gardening. And the biggest benefit: No Mosquitos.

Continue reading…

A Prickly Pear Cocktail

In yesterday’s blog post I discussed how to juice prickly pear cactus fruit. Now, what to do with that juice. Thanks to Stephen Rudicel for improvising this recipe:

Prickly Pear Fruit Cocktail
1 part tequilla
2 parts prickly pear fruit juice
1/6 part lime juice
1/6 part Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
Dash of bitters

Shake with ice and serve.

If you can think of a catchier name for this drink, feel free to comment.

Guilt Free Ice Pops

Orange blossom ice pops from Homestead Survival

This could be the year that the ice pop becomes the new cupcake. I’m sure some Brooklyn hipster is just about to debut an artisinal ice pop cart pulled by heirloom draft dogs.

Cynicism aside, what I like about ice pops is that, unlike other desserts, you can make them with either small amounts of sugar or no sugar at all. All you need is a ice pop mold and a freezer. What follows are a few links to recipes for healthy ice pops, perfect for those hot August days:

As to how I make them, I’ve got some old Tupperware type ice pop molds that I’ve used for years. Pure simplicity. Take note Brooklyn hipsters: the paletas may be the new fixie. Start training those draft dogs.

Barley Water

Being an American, barley water is not part of my mental landscape. Perhaps it was big in the U.S. back in the Victorian era, but it seems to have faded from our national consciousness. Indeed, if you’re one of our American readers, you may be asking now: what the heck is it? My fellow Americans, barley water is a drink made from barley, lemon and sugar, known to be cooling and refreshing in the summer and perhaps somewhat healthy.

Meanwhile I do know that it is more popular in other parts of the world. I’ve seen it sold in bottles in Great Britain, and from the Internets I can see it’s known in Ireland and Australia. What say you, Canada? I’ve had unsweetened barley water in a can from a Japanese supermarket, and I believe unsweetened barley water is a health drink all the way from India to Japan. And of course, there’s hot and cold roasted barley tea in those parts, too.

Health claims for barely water vary depending on how and where it’s made. It has been used as a pap for infants, as a balm for digestive systems, to sooth sore throats and to cure UTIs, to promote lactation, and even to combat high blood pressure. This is all fascinating, but I’m just making it as a summer drink.

There’s lots of recipes for barley water on the web, and most of them seem to produce something very like lemonade, i.e. they are made with lots of citrus juice and sugar. But I found an old recipe in Google books (unfortunately I lost the source) which made a  mild, barely sweet drink. I cannot say this is at all representative recipe, but I like it precisely because it is so mild–more in the family of cucumber water than lemonade, if you see what I mean. I also like it because there’s no cooking involved. I offer it as an alternative.

 After I share my recipe, I’ll give some tips for finding your own barley water path.

I hope our readers will chime in and tell us where they’re from, if and how they make barley water, and whether they use it as a health drink, or just drink it for fun.

Mild, Not-So-Sweet Barley Water

2/3 cup uncooked barley (pearl or hulled)
4 cups (1 qt) boiling water
1 lemon
1 Tablespoon of sugar or other sweetener
A quart Mason jar

  1. Rinse the barley well, as you’d rinse rice. If you don’t, the finished drink looks even more like dishwater than usual.
  2. Put the rinsed barley into a quart-sized Mason jar.  
  3. Peel the yellow skin (not the pith) from one half to one full organic lemon with a zester or vegetable peeler.  Put the zest into the jar with the barley. You can go ahead and add a squeeze of lemon juice at this time, but I find I like less lemon flavor, so only use the zest.
  4. Add 1 Tablespoon of sugar.
  5. Pour boiling water over everything, filling the quart jar.
  6. Let the mix sit on the counter until it cools, about an hour. Then strain the liquid into another container and refrigerate. Drink when cold. Makes a quart.

Variations and notes:

–There are a million recipes for barley water out there. The most common cooking methodology, though, seems to be a short simmering of the barley in the water, instead of the soaking technique I’ve outlined above. A 20 to 30 minute simmer seems pretty standard. This will yield a more cloudy liquid. After straining the mix is flavored to taste with lemon juice and sugar.

–Longer simmering times result in a more viscous liquid which contains soothing properties and some vitamins. This is what they fed invalids and babies in the old days.

–Similarly, the more barley you use in proportion to water, the thicker and more barley-flavored the result.

–How much lemon and sweetener you want to use is entirely up to you. The recipes run the gamut from having no sweetener to super-sweet.

–Variant flavors include using other citrus flavors, like orange and lime, as well as ginger and mint.

— It is important that you remember to rinse the barley. I found swishing it in a bowl through a couple changes of water enough, but I’ve also seen it recommended that you rinse it with boiling water, and several recipes asked you to bring the barley and water to a boil for five minutes, then pour off the dirty water, replace it with clean and continue cooking.

–Pearl barley is barley that has had the bran scrubbed off of it. It’s what I find around here in grocery stores. Hulled barley is less common, but if you have access to a good health food store you should be able to find it. It’s more nutritious than the pearled kind.

–You will have leftover barley when you make this drink, but it need not be wasted. If you use one of the cooking methods, you’ll end up with a bowl of cooked barley. If you follow my recipe and just soak it, you’ll need to finish the cooking. Cooked barley can be dressed up many ways–it can become a nice snack (with salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese) or breakfast (with honey and fruit). Cooked barley can also thrown into stews or folded into breads. I just found an interesting barley cake recipe that I just might share soon, if it works.

Some other recipes you might enjoy:

A post explaining why barley water is ancient history (with recipes!): http://blog.kathrynmcgowan.com/2010/09/13/barley-water-an-ancient-refreshing-drink/

A Chinese barley water: http://www.noobcook.com/lemon-barley-drink/2/

Super citrus barley water: http://www.thekitchn.com/old-school-cooler-barley-water-122687

Dr. Chase, 19th Century Mixologist

And I thought book titles were getting too long. Root Simple reader David Stentiford sent me a link to an online collection of recipe books, Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project, maintained by Michigan State University. David especially wanted to call attention to a book, published in 1864, Dr. Chase’s Recipes. The full title of Dr. Chase’s book?

Dr. Chase’s Recipes; Or, Information for Everybody: An Invaluable Collection of About Eight Hundred Practical Recipes, for Merchants, Grocers, Saloon-Keepers, Harness Makers, Painters, Jewelers, Blacksmiths, Tinners, Gunsmiths, Farriers, Barbers, Bakers, Dyers, Renovaters, Farmers, and Families Generally, To Which Have Been Added A Rational Treatment of Pleurisy, Inflammation of the Lungs, and other Inflammatory Diseases, and also for General Female Debility and Irregularities: All arranged in their Appropriate Departments.

There’s certainly many recipes of interest to the modern homesteader, not to mention artisinal mixologists, in this book: rhubarb wine, bitters, spruce beers and “Lemonade–To Carry in the Pocket”:

Loaf sugar1lb.; rub it down finely in a mortar, and add citric acid 1/2 oz: tartaric acid will do, and lemon essence 1/2 oz, and continue the trituration until all is intimately mixed, and bottle for use . . . A rounding tablespoon can be done up in a paper and carried convenently in the pocket when persons are going into out-of-the-way places, and added to half pint of cold water.”

And, should all the sugar so loved in the 19th century rot out your teeth, Dr. Chase is kind enough to provide instructions on how to extract your own teeth with, “little or no pain.”