Check out the new episode of the KeramCast.com by Taste Odyssey author Keram Malicki-Sanchez where he discusses the Raw Food diet vs. Macrobiotic, blender vs. juicer, the major problem with Corn in America, how much water a person really should drink and how to eat healthy when you are stuck in a tour van in Nevada.

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Pumpkin Marmalade
Author: Diana Griffiths

This wonderfully golden Marmalade is a real treat on scones or used as a tart filling.

* 1.5kg Pumpkin
* 1 litre water
* 2 oranges, thinly sliced into semi circles
* 3 lemons, thinly sliced into semi circles
* 100g fresh ginger root, finely shredded
* 1 kg granulated or preserving sugar

Peel the pumpkin and remove all the seeds and fibers. Grate coarsely, trying to keep the strands as long as possible. Put the pumpkin in a preserving pan and add the water, oranges, lemons and ginger. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes until the citrus peel is tender.

Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Bring back to the boil and cook over a medium heat for a further 30 minutes, by which stage the mixture should have thickened. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the fruit to settle for a few minutes. Pour into sterilized jars and seal. This recipe has a shelf life of about 2 years.

Salamander Cookshop Blog – Our cookshop blog features regular articles and recipes for you to try. Each article gives helpful tips, from choosing the right frying pan, to selecting essential cookware for your kitchen. We are also building a selection of recipes, including fish and meat dishes, stews and desserts. Feel free to leave a comment or get in touch. Also take a look at our favorite sites.

Previously published on the Salamander Cookshop Blog. Author: Diana Griffiths – We will be publishing lots more articles and recipes soon – including sweet, savory and snacks.

Tags: article source, autumn recipes, blog features, citrus peel, cookshop, frying pan, ginger root, grate, helpful tips, marmalade, meat dishes, medium heat, oranges lemons, preserving pan, preserving sugar, pumpkin, salamander, savoury, scones, shelf life, stews

The macrobiotic diet replaces simple carbohydrates with more complex, slower-burning ones like brown rice, quinoa, barley and millet.  These complex carbs release a continuous stream of glucose into the blood at a rate of about two calories per minute whereas the sugar from a chocolate bar burns significantly more quickly, releasing thirty or more calories in the same time.  Whole grains make up almost 70 percent of the total caloric intake of a macrobiotic diet!

See my favorite brown rice and barley mixture recipe for a reliable, delicious and simple foundation with which to build your balancing and highly nutritious macrobiotic meal plan.

Quinoa is an absolute miracle food that is equally delicious as a savory or sweet dish.  The inherent nutty flavor of quinoa (which can be drawn out to greater or lesser degree dependent upon whether you toast grain dry before adding water to boil) makes it a great choice for crispy salads, as a substitute for rice or potatoes or even with toasted sesame seeds, raising, and some soy, almond or rice milk for breakfast.

Quinoa Salad: delicious, versatile and amazingly healthful

Quinoa can be expensive in the grocery store, but you can find it at a far better price in bulk food stores so check there first.

Here are some basic tips for cooking grains:

All grains, with the exception of rice, and the various grain meals, require prolonged cooking with gentle and continuous heat, in order to so disintegrate their tissues and change their starch into dextrine as to render them easy of digestion. Even the so-called “steam-cooked” grains, advertised to be ready for use in five or ten minutes, require a much longer cooking to properly fit them for digestion. These so-called quickly prepared grains are simply steamed before grinding, which has the effect to destroy any low organisms contained in the grain. They are then crushed and shredded. Bicarbonate of soda and lime is added to help dissolve the albuminoids, and sometimes diastase to aid the conversion of the starch into sugar; but there is nothing in this preparatory process that so alters the chemical nature of the grain as to make it possible to cook it ready for easy digestion in five or ten minutes. An insufficiently cooked grain, although it may be palatable, is not in a condition to be readily acted upon by the digestive fluids, and is in consequence left undigested to act as a mechanical irritant.

Water is the liquid usually employed for cooking grains, but many of them are richer and finer flavored when milk is mixed with the water, one part to two of water. Especially is this true of rice, hominy, and farina. When water is used, soft water is preferable to hard. No salt is necessary, but if used at all, it is generally added to the water before stirring in the grain or meal.

The quantity of liquid required varies with the different grains, the manner in which they are milled, the method by which they are cooked, and the consistency desired for the cooked grain, more liquid being required for a porridge than for a mush.

All grains should be carefully looked over before being put to cook.

In the cooking of grains, the following points should be observed:

1. Measure both liquid and grain accurately with the same utensil, or with two of equal size.

2. Have the water boiling when the grain is introduced, but do not allow it to boil for a long time previous, until it is considerably evaporated, as that will change the proportion of water and grain sufficiently to alter the consistency of the mush when cooked. Introduce the grain slowly, so as not to stop the sinking to the bottom, and the whole becomes thickened.

3. Stir the grain continuously until it has set, but not at all afterward. Grains are much more appetizing if, while properly softened, they can still be made to retain their original form. Stirring renders the preparation pasty, and destroys its appearance.

In the preparation of all mushes with meal or flour, it is a good plan to make the material into a batter with a portion of the liquid retained from the quantity given, before introducing it into the boiling water. This prevents the tendency to cook in lumps, so frequent when dry meal is scattered into boiling liquid. Care must be taken, however, to add the moistened portion very slowly, stirring vigorously meantime, so that the boiling will not be checked. Use warm water for moistening. The other directions given for the whole or broken grains are applicable to the ground products.

Place the grain, when sufficiently cooked, in the refrigerator or in some place where it will cool quickly (as slow cooling might cause fermentation), to remain overnight.

Tags: barley, bicarbonate of soda, calories per minute, chemical nature, consistency, continuous heat, dextrine, digestion, digestive fluids, farina, glucose, grains, hominy, irritant, lime, macrobiotic diet, mush, organisms, porridge, quinoa, soft water, starch, steam, tissues, utensil, whole grains

Delicious barley is a complex carb that also aids in digestion

Barley is stated by historians to be the oldest of all cultivated grains. It seems to have been the principal bread plant among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. The Jews especially held the grain in high esteem, and sacred history usually uses it interchangeably with wheat, when speaking of the fruits of the Earth.

Among the early Greeks and Romans, barley was almost the only food of the common people and the soldiers. The flour was made into gruel, after the following recipe: “Dry, near the fire or in the oven, twenty pounds of barley flour, then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seeds, two ounces of salt, and the water necessary.” If an especially delectable dish was desired, a little millet was also added to give the paste more “cohesion and delicacy.” Barley was also used whole as a food, in which case it was first parched, which is still the manner of preparing it in some parts of Palestine and many districts of India, also in the Canary Islands, where it is known as gofio.

In the time of Charles I, barley meal took the place of wheat almost entirely as the food of the common people in England. In some parts of Europe, India, and other Eastern countries, it is still largely consumed as the ordinary farinaceous food of the peasantry and soldiers. The early settlers of New England also largely used it for bread making.

There are several distinct species of barley, but that most commonly cultivated is designated as two-rowed, or two-eared barley. In general structure, the barley grain resembles wheat and oats.

Simply deprived of its outer husk, the grain is termed  Scotch milled or pot barley.  Subjected still further to the process by which the fibrous outer coat of the grain is removed, it constitutes what is known as pearl barley.  Pearl barley ground into flour is known as  patent barley.  Barley flour, owing to the fact that it contains so small a proportion of gluten, needs to be mixed with wheaten flour for bread-making purposes. When added in small quantity to whole-wheat bread, it has a tendency to keep the loaf moist, and is thought by some to improve the flavor.

The most general use made of this cereal as a food, is in the form of pearl, or Scotch, barley.  When well boiled, barley requires about two hours for digestion.

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The best part about cooking “macrobiotically” is that the result is never “less than” – in fact I find the results more fulfilling in a full-body cellular sense than any other method of cooking.

The only caveat is that the initial setup of a Macro kitchen can run a bit expensive because you may not have the pantry of basics (umeboshi, rice wine vinegar, pure maple syrup, agar, blackstrap molasses etc.) used by this method of cooking – but once you do, it will last you a long while.

To exemplify this I am borrowing from Sandra Lynn Shuman’s Macrobiotic Desserts (Dictionart, 1981) to bring you:

Sour Cream Apple Pie

1 1/2 cup drained tofu

2 tsp. umeboshi paste

2 T. fresh lemon juice *

1/8 tsp. grated lemon rind *

1/4 cup + 1 T. rice syrup **

3 T. pure maple syrup

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup arrowroot

1/2 cup water

1 tsp. pure vanilla

3 cups sliced apples

1 10 inch unbaked oat Nut Crust 

Preheat the oven to 350°.  In a blender put all the ingredients, except apples and crust, and blend until smooth.  Set aside.  Prepare the Oat Nut Crust and set aside.  Wash the apples and cut them into very thin half-moon slices.  Layer the apples on top of the crust.  Pour tofu mixture over the apples.  Place pie on lower shelf and bake for 40 minutes, until top is golden brown.  Cool completely before cutting.  Keep refigerated.

* organic please, they are much more flavorful and nutrient rich

** rice syrup is an amazing sugar substitute whose flavor and texture is akin to a very mild caramel 

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