It’s proving to be a little difficult to get back into a routine of blogging.  I had the same struggle during the summer last year, and it’s been enough to make me consider not even trying to keep Ragamuffin Diaries going throughout the summer work season.  However, that just seems to drastic, and I’ve concluded that I’d rather post sporadically than not at all!

One of the reasons it’s been difficult is just the lack of internet access.  The one spot I can get online is the office at Kennicott Wilderness Guides, where I work, and which is a 7 mile bike ride (mostly uphill) from where I’m living this year.  Of course, I’m here often enough for work (I start my office shift in 30 minutes, so must finish typing before then!), but often find that I don’t want to stick around any longer than I need to after work’s over.

The other reason is the fact that it’s harder to cook out here.  I did a big grocery shopping trip back at the beginning of May, and that’s all the ingredients I have to work with until another big shopping trip in July (besides a few fresh items brought out by friends!).  So, options are limited.  Also, with the more busy, scattered schedule, I find myself regularly going back to stand-by recipes instead of trying out new ones.

But, the one really exciting thing about this summer, is that, for the first time in my five years of working out here, I’m living in a place that actually has an oven!  If you’ve ever lived 4 1/2 months with only a 2 burner propane stove as your cooking device, you’ll understand how thrilling this is.  So, when I had a day off last week, and looked at three browning bananas on the counter, I decided it was a good day to get the oven going.

This bread was a complete success.  I made it with sourdough just for some of the health benefits of fermenting, but you could just as easily make it without (I’d increase the flour by 2/3 cup and add 2/3 cup of some kinda milk).  Since I only let the sponge sit for about 5 hours, the sour flavor didn’t come through very strongly in the bread, which was perfect for this.

As I looked at a few different banana bread recipes, I was shocked by how much sugar they all called for.  Comeon folks, this is bread, not cake!  Of course, maybe I’m not one to talk, since I did throw chocolate chips in there, but hey, most of these recipes called for at least three times as much as sugar as I used, AND the chocolate chips!  So I cut back the sugar drastically, and used honey instead of a refined option.  Turned out perfect!  If you have a sweeter tooth, you could increase the honey to 1/2 cup, but really, it’s not needed.

Now I better get to work.  Today I’m stayin’ in the office instead of going out on the glacier, which is just fine since the rain is pouring down outside.  Feels like a great day to be inside drinking tea!

Sourdough Banana Bread
makes 2 shorter loaves, or 1 big one

1/3 cup coconut oil (or butter), melted
1 cup sourdough starter
about 1 1/3 cup mashed banana (I used 3)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used mini)
1/2 cup coconut, plus some for sprinklin’

Reserving 2 Tbsp of flour, mix together the coconut oil, sourdough starter, banana and flour.  Cover with a damp cloth and let sit in a warm place for 4-8 hours.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Toss the chocolate chips with the reserved flour (I’m not totally sure if it works, but this is supposed to keep them from sinking in the bread…. mine didn’t sink, so I figure I’ll keep doing it!).  Add all the remaining ingredients to the sponge and mix until incorporated.  I decided this was enough batter for two loaves, but if you wanted one taller one, you could just go for it.  Divide batter between two oiled & floured loaf pans, and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool in pans for 10 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Enjoy!!!!

Hello friends!

Mmm, it feels so good to be back writing a new post.  I can’t wait to catch up on all the new recipes everyone’s posted while I’ve been gone!  Has it really been over a month?  It’s gone by quickly.  Summer is finally starting to act convincing up here in Alaska.  Spring was very late this year, with the last snowfall coming on May 15th!  Thankfully there have been a few sunny days since there and in the last week the trees have all leafed out.  Now it’s finally green & gorgeous outside!  Today the sun is shining, and I’ll be guiding a full day glacier hike.  I couldn’t ask for a more beautiful day!

Joe & I have stayed busy since being out in McCarthy/Kennicott.  It took a while to get moved into the little 10×12 cabin we’re living in, plus we had lots of garden work to do, then my sister came out and visited for about 5 days, and then Joe’s parents were out for about a week.  It’s been great, but I didn’t feel ready to start blogging again (plus there wasn’t much internet access!) until now.

I’ve gotta keep this brief, since I do have a glacier hike to get ready for, but this is a recipe I discovered while at my Mom’s last month.  I was canning chickpeas, and had some extras that I’d cooked but didn’t fit in my jars.  Of course, I love chickpeas, and especially when they’re combined with chocolate, and so I did some brainstorming and recipe searching, finally coming across the perfect idea over at BitterSweet’s gorgeous blog.

I changed a few things in the recipe, mainly using maple syrup instead of refined sugar, and really upping the peanut butter flavor.  This was a total hit!  I was able to share it with my two sisters, plus a couple cousins and friends, and everyone gave it great reviews.  (Oh, and Joe was pretty excited too!)  Soooo, if you’ve got some chickpeas, here’s an awesome way to use them up!  It’s delicious on bread, crackers, apples, and I’m sure there’s a bunch of other options I haven’t gotten to yet…

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Spread
(inspired by this)
makes about 3 cups

2 cups cooked chickpeas
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (I used crunchy because it’s what I had…. Smooth would be just as wonderful!)
2-3 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
4-6 TBSP water

This is pretty easy: Combine all ingredients (start with about 3 TBSP of water) in a food processor or blender, and mix until smooth!  Scrape down the sides as necessary to make sure that everything is mixed in, and add more water until it reaches the right consistency.  Spread on whatever you like!

Enjoy!!!

I was going to post a recipe tonight, but now that I’m here, I think it’s just gonna be a few pictures instead.  In my last post, I mentioned that it’s again moving time for me & Joe.  We both work seasonally out in Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve, and so that means moving each spring & each fall.  It gets a bit exhausting, but at least we’re almost through with this go around….

We left Fairbanks on Sunday, and drove the 7ish hours down to my parent’s house.  Since then, we’ve gone through a few boxes of clothes and gear that have been stored away, done some car work, eaten some delicious food, and relaxed a bit.  We were also lucky enough to watch a lynx stroll across the hayfield outside the front window yesterday, and later walked out to one of the river bluffs to find the first crocus’ peeking out: one of my favorite events of the year!

Tomorrow we drive the remaining three hours (mostly down a gravel road) out to our “summer home” in McCarthy.  McCarthy & Kennicott are two very special towns out in Wrangell-St. Elias.  Kennicott was a copper mine in the early 1900s, and is now one of the older historic sites in Alaska, in an incredible setting.  McCarthy is three miles from Kennicott, and most folks out there during the summer live in McCarthy.  Joe works for the Wrangell Mountain Center, an educational non-profit, and I work for Kennicott Wilderness Guides, leading glacier and backcountry trips.

We also spend a fair bit of our time gardening!  We’re both pretty excited about getting our hands in the soil once we get out to McCarthy.  Between the two of us, we’ll be taking care of three different gardens, so it should keep us busy!

I’m definitely looking forward to growing lots of wonderful, fresh food this summer.  I also can’t wait to get out on the glacier and see how it’s changed!  (That can wait a lil’ while though, as I’m sure there’s still a fair bit of snow on it.)    Each summer out in McCarthy/Kennicott is different and unique in its own way, and I’m excited to see what happens this year.

Once I get out to McCarthy tomorrow, I won’t have internet access for a while, so posts will be sporadic at best.  Honestly, if I’m lucky there will probably be 1-2 posts in the next 3-4 weeks….  That makes me sad!  :-(  But I will have plenty of things to keep me busy: plenty of seeds to plant and garden beds to care for…..  I’ll miss all of you and look forward to catching up once I’ve got steady internet again!  In the meantime, enjoy spring!!!

We move tomorrow!  It’s a little crazy that our winter in Fairbanks is already over and it’s time to move back to the Wrangells for summer, but we both feel ready for it.  More on where we’re going & doing in a couple days, but for now I’m taking a quick break from packing and cleaning to post a lovely little treat.

My dad came up to Fairbanks for a work meeting a couple weeks ago, and so was able to come by our cabin for dinner.  For dessert, I made my vegan and gluten-free chocolate beet cake with a couple changes.  I wanted to try using black beans instead of chickpeas, and found that it definitely gives a bit of a denser result.  My first bite also made me think that I could taste the beans a little bit, but I didn’t notice it after that, and neither Joe or my dad noticed any “beany” flavor.  So, black beans can be used, but I think the chickpeas work a bit better.

The second change was to make them in cupcake form!  I’ve never really caught on to the cupcake craze, but it’s true that cupcakes are just fun every once in a while.  At first I was distraught, because these puffed up, creating a rim around the outside of the muffin cup, and then the denser middle sank, creating a little “cake cup” as Joe called it.  After my initial distress, however, I realized this was perfect, because all I had to do was scoop a spoonfull of whatever filling I wanted into the cupcakes, and it looked like I was totally going for that effect!

We first ate them with some homemade raspberry rhubarb sauce, canned last fall, and then enjoyed the leftovers another night with a peanut butter honey filling, sprinkled with cocoa nibs.  The possibilities are pretty endless, really!  Anything that goes with chocolate, would be absolutely divine in these little “cake cups”.

Instead of typing out the cake recipe, I’m just giving you the link, and then getting back to packing.  Lots still to do today!

For cupcakes: fill muffin tins very full with cake batter.  Bake at 325 degrees for 35-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out almost clean.  Cool completely before removing from muffin tins.  Fill cups with anything you like!!!

Enjoy!!!

Here’s another treat from our Easter meal (I know, I know, that was a while ago at this point!).  I wanted a salad that was something a little special, but have no access to lovely things like arugula, mizuna, or pea shoots like so many spring salad recipes call for!  After browsing a few cookbooks, I landed on an intriguing combination in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions.

It seems that in the U.S., radicchio is pretty much relegated to a few representative slivers in bagged salad mixes.  You don’t see it getting many starring roles!  Joe didn’t know what it was, and neither did the check-out lady when I bought it at the grocery.  It’s a great little vegetable though.  Besides it’s nice red color which provides a nice change of pace from generally green salads, it’s also high in calcium, and a good source of vitamin C and carotenes.

Radicchio was cultivated in Italy, and is still widely used there, where it is often grilled or roasted.  It’s a member of the chicory family, and so has a somewhat spicy, bitter flavor, which I’ve read is mellowed out by roasting.  In this salad, the orange flavor provides a really delicious complement to the radicchio.  I’d definitely love to try it cooked some different ways though!

I was intrigued to find out that the plant is a perennial, which is exciting because there aren’t that many perennial veggies I know about.  Although I would be surprised if it could over-winter in Alaska, it’s definitely a vegetable I’d be interested in trying to grow.

This salad was a delicious, and beautiful, change of pace.  It was very easy to prepare, and like I mentioned, the radicchio and orange flavors complement each other very nicely.  The addition of the roasted red onion really completes it.  If you haven’t really gotten to know radicchio yet, this is a good way to start!

Radicchio & Orange Salad
serves 2

1 large head radicchio, finely shredded
1 orange, peeled and sectioned (with membranes removed if you’re an over-achiever…. it’s of course delicious either way! )
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
olive oil, for brushing

Dressing:
1 tsp grated orange rind (from an organic orange; pesticides collect in the peels, so anytime you plan to use the peel, go organic!)
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
about 4 Tbsp olive oil

Place onions on an oiled baking sheet and  brush with olive oil.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until dry and browned.

Combine all ingredients for dressing and toss with the radicchio.  Divide between two plates.  Top with orange wedges and grilled onion slices.

Enjoy!!!

Many months ago, I’d seen a recipe for gravlox, or cured salmon, on a blog somewhere, and have kept the idea in the back of my mind ever since.  I’m fortunate enough to live near the Copper River during the summer, which is one of the best places to get sockeye salmon (also called Copper River Reds).  So, every year, as long as I’m fortunate enough to have some luck while dipnetting, or have a friend with surplus fish, I’m able to can & freeze enough salmon to enjoy year round.

Joe & I often make sushi throughout the winter, which is always a wonderful treat, but I was definitely intrigued by this new way of eating raw salmon.  Raw meat is a food that has been enjoyed by most cultures around the world, in different forms for hundreds and thousands of years – steak tartare in France, kibbeh from Middle East, carpaccio from Italy, and various other marinated fish dishes.  Being raw, it’s much easier for the body to digest, not being damaged by the cooking process.  Of course, if you’re gonna eat any meat or fish raw, know your source!  I only eat wild game and wild salmon, both of which are, naturally, organic, and so when I eat them raw, I don’t have to worry about what may be lurking inside them.  It’s also important to make sure the meat has been frozen for at least 14 days to kill any parasites; for fish, marinating in an acidic solution does the same trick.

I’m so glad I finally got around to making gravlox!  It was a delicious treat, and so simple to make.  We enjoyed it for Easter along with the teff pancakes and cashew cream I wrote about last post – the combination was mind blowing.  Really wonderful.

Gravlox (cured salmon)
adapted from Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon
serves 4-6

about 1 pound salmon fillet, fresh or frozen, with skin on
2 Tbsp sea salt
2 Tbsp evaporated cane sugar, or Rapadura
2 Tbsp whey (or use an additional 2 Tbsp salt)
1 bunch of fresh dill, snipped

Using pliers, remove any small bones in the fish.  Rinse well, and pat dry.  Mix together the salt and sweetener, and rub thoroughly into the flesh side of the salmon.  Place in a ziploc bag, sprinkle with whey and top with dill.  Close the bag, squeezing out as much as air as possible, and refrigerate for at least 2 days, or up to 6 (I only went for 2).  Weigh some heavy objects on the salmon (books, or a brick) to help with the absorption of the marinade.

To serve, remove from bag and rinse gently to remove salt and sugar.  Pat dry with a paper towel.  Slice thinly, scraping the skin clean (you could also skin the whole fillet, but I have a hard time doing that without losing some of the fatty layer right next to the skin).  Serve with Teff Pancakes & Cashew Cream, or with sourdough bread, or individually with some lemon juice.

Enjoy!!!

When I first noticed this idea in a cookbook, I just stared at the picture, thinking “really?”.  It seemed like a slightly strange idea, using miniature pancakes with a topping for a savory appetizer….  Why not just use crackers?  But, I love the cookbook, and really respect the food ideology of the woman who wrote it, so I figured they couldn’t be that bad.

Then, while Joe & I were contemplating what to make for Easter, I kept coming back to this recipe.  I wanted to try making gravlox (more on that in the next post!), and these seemed like they would be a great accompaniment.  So we finally settled on the little pancakes with their cashew cream, albeit a bit nervous about whether our hand-crank food processor would really be able to create cashew cream.

Thankfully, it was!  Maybe not entirely as smooth as electricity would provide, but close enough.  These also surpassed all of my expectations.  They were pretty tasty on their own, but once you added the gravlox to the picture?  Unbelievably delicious.  I can’t wait for an excuse to make them again!  (The only reason I’m waiting is that, unfortunately, raw cashews and teff flour are both kinda spendy.  This was a splurge, but certain a worthwhile one.)

The recipes, revised slightly, are from Jennifer Katzinger’s Gluten-Free and Vegan Holidays, which is a beautiful little book.  When I found her first book, I was so excited by the fact that she had vegan baked goods, but, like me, avoided using soy products or refined sweeteners.  Her two cookbooks are great resources; I love them!

Teff Pancakes with Cashew Cream
makes about 24

Cashew Cream:
1 1/2 cups raw cashews, soaked in water for at least 8 hours, then drained
about 6 Tbsp lemon juice (1 large lemon did it for me)
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup water
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Teff Pancakes:
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup teff flour
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp poppy seeds
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 cup water
small fresh dill sprigs, for garnish

To make the cashew cream, combine the cashews, lemon juice, dill and water in a blender or food processor and process until the cream is smooth.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Set aside or chill overnight.

To make the pancakes, whisk all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.  Heat a cast-iron skillet lightly greased with coconut oil over medium heat.  Drop tablespoon size portions of batter and fry the pancakes for about 3 minutes per side, or until slightly firm.  Keep the cooked pancakes warm in the oven, or wrapped in a towel on the back of the stove, while you cook the remaining batter.

To serve, place a dollop of cashew cream on each pancake, and garnish with a sprig of dill.  Serve with gravlox, if you eat fish.

Enjoy!!!

I love all the hard-boiled eggs that come with Easter. As a kid, we’d always get together with cousins after church for a big family dinner and, later on, an Easter egg hunt. It wasn’t till much later in life that I learned our Easter egg hunt wasn’t the typical type. No plastic eggs filled with candy for us, no, we used the actual eggs.

Each family had dozens of eggs (there were 6 kids in both families; that adds up to a lot of eggs if you wanna be able to find more than 2!) which they’d hard-boiled and decorated the week before. Our dads would go outside and hide the eggs, and we’d be sent out to find them, often leaking their lovely colors into the surrounding snow, unless it was a real lucky Easter and the snow was already gone! It was great fun, and I had no idea I was missing out on an excessive waste of colored plastic and an overdose of refined sugar. Perfect!

This Easter we still had plenty of snow, but, I was thrilled to find some pussy willows starting to grow. It’s so exciting to see a sign of life even though there’s still a couple feet of snow on the ground! Our days are warming up to 45-50 degrees now, which is wonderful. Spring is such an exciting time! Now I just can’t wait for the snow to be gone so I can get my hands in some soil….

Anyways, the great thing about so many Easter eggs for the annual hunt, was yes, the hard-boiled eggs that we would be eating non-stop for the next week or so. Egg salad, deviled eggs, even a couple random casseroles – there were many ways to use them up! My favorite though, is a deviled egg. So good, so simple. I don’t know where the idea came from, or where the name came from, but I know they’re great.

Joe’s not a big fan of eggs on their own. I can use them in baking, but he won’t eat an egg. So this year I made “small-scale” deviled eggs. So simple, so good! I hard-boiled 4 eggs, and have been making deviled eggs one at a time. It’s kinda fun that way. And it meant this post could be dedicated to my sister Amy, who wants to see some single-serving recipes on my blog. Granted, this is more of a “method” than a recipe, but close enough.

I’m sure everyone has different “favorite” ways of making their deviled eggs. My mom always used a bit of horseradish in hers, and I’m a firm believer that it is essential to making a good deviled egg. I also played around a bit this year, since I have no mayonnaise, and wasn’t about to go buy any. I used homemade yogurt instead! A lil, different, but worked fine.

Deviled Egg for One
(can be increased by as much as you like!!)

1 egg, hard-boiled
1-2 tsp plain yogurt, or some mayonnaise
lil’ bit of horseradish, to taste
garlic powder
dill, fresh or dried
salt & pepper
paprika

Peel and cut the egg in half, scoop the yolk out and place in a bowl. Combine with the yogurt and horseradish, mixing to get the right consistency. When smooth, sprinkle in a lil’ garlic powder, dill, salt and pepper. Mix well. Spoon back into the egg whites, and sprinkle with paprika.

Enjoy!!!

Easter morning is such a good time for a bit of a splurge, and these cinnamon rolls fit that role perfectly.  The “sourdough cinnamon roll” idea had been floating around in my head for quite some time, and what better time to give them a try than a beautiful Easter morning?

These worked wonderfully.  We started the dough the afternoon before, and then after going to a beautiful 7AM sunrise service, rolled them out and let them rise.  We were enjoying them by 10AM, which was perfect timing.  Certainly a bit easier & faster than starting the dough that morning and having to wait for multiple rises!

I’d never made cinnamon rolls on my own (still haven’t really, since Joe handled much of the bread-making!), but have spent countless mornings and afternoons helping my mom produce dozens of them.  In case I haven’t mentioned it before (and even if I have), she is quite the baker, known all around town for her light and delicious whole wheat bread, doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, and just about anything else that would fall in the bread category.

This being my experience with cinnamon rolls, of course I have somewhat high standards.  Thankfully, these rolls delivered.  As I expected, they’re different than mom’s, with their characteristic sour note and a less “fluffy” end result, but still delicious.

The sourdough flavor complimented the normal sweetness of cinnamon rolls quite well, but if you’re a bit fan of a really light, fluffy cinnamon roll, the yeasted version may be the one for you.  I did read a few recipes for 36-hr sourdough cinnamon rolls, and perhaps a longer process like that would meet even higher standards, but we didn’t start thinking about our recipe early enough to give that method a try.  There were also recipes which combined yeast and sourdough, but we wanted to stick with a wild fermentation this time around.

These would be wonderful for a weekend breakfast, or a treat anytime.  We’ve reheated our leftover rolls and enjoyed them for even more special breakfasts yesterday and today, but they are certainly best fresh out of the oven.

Since I grew up helping mom make cinnamon rolls and never measuring the ingredients that went into the filling or the glaze, that’s how I made these.  I’ll give approximate guesses for how much brown sugar to use, etc., but just follow your instincts, really.  My mom has made cinnamon rolls with coconut oil in the filling before, so that Joe could eat them, but we used ghee (since the milk solids have been removed, Joe doesn’t at all react to it) this time, which fulfills the buttery factor perfectly.  You could use butter, ghee or coconut oil (if vegan or allergic to milk products) for delicious results.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
makes about 16

dough:
1 1/2 cup sourdough starter (ours is the consistency of pancake batter)
2-3 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup coconut milk
2 Tbsp maple syrup or honey
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

filling:
about 1/2 cup brown sugar (I used organic evaporated cane juice mixed with a lil’ organic molasses)
butter, ghee, or coconut oil, softened
cinnamon
chopped nuts (we used pecans) and/or raisins, optional

glaze:
about 1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered evaporated cane juice sugar
1-2 Tbsp coconut milk
1 Tbsp maple syrup

The afternoon before you plan to make cinnamon rolls, mix together your sourdough starter and 1 cup of the flour.  This will help the yeast activate and spread throughout the flour.  In the evening (ours sat for about 6 hours before this step), add the remaining ingredients for the dough, adding enough flour to make the dough workable & not too sticky, but keep it pretty soft.  Knead for 4-5 minutes, adding more flour if necessary.

Place in an oiled bowl.  Cover with a damp cloth and leave in a warm place to rise overnight.

The next morning, punch down the dough and transfer to an oiled surface (my mom always spreads the countertop with palm fruit shortening; this works a whole lot better than flour in keeping the dough from sticking!).  Roll out into a rectangle, about 12 x 18 inches.  Using your fingers, spread the softened butter (ghee, or coconut oil), over the entire surface of dough.  The sprinkle with the brown sugar, some cinnamon and nuts/raisins, if using.

Starting at the long side of the rectangle, roll the dough into a long log, working gently and being careful not to tear the dough.  Pinch the ends together to seal.  Here’s the fun part: you can cut the rolls with a knife, or you can use my mom’s method, which keeps the rolls much rounder.  Take a piece of dental floss, wrap it around your two pointer fingers, slide the floss underneath the dough, then bring your two fingers up to meet in the middle above the dough, as the floss slices through and gives you a perfectly round cinnamon roll!  Place the rounds in an oiled 9″x13″ baking pan (I love my pyrex for this).  Let rise 1-2 hours, or until about doubled in size.  Keeping them warm will help them rise faster!

Preheat oven to 350.  Once rolls have risen, bake them for about 20 minutes, or until beginning to brown.  Prepare glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar, maple syrup and enough coconut milk to make it the right consistency.  When rolls are done, let cool slightly, then cover with glaze.
ENJOY!!!!

This is exciting; it’s the first posting of pictures from my new camera!  I received my beautiful Canon EOS Rebel T2i last Friday, just in time to be introduced to the world on a nice day hike/snowshoe from Angel Rocks to Chena Hot Springs (about an hour northeastish of Fairbanks).  We’d planned the day trip with another friend, as a bit of a last winter fling before spring break-up (the AK term for the season when all that snow out there melts) really sets in.

We started out with a couple mile hike to Angel Rocks, which is a really neat place full of unique rock formations that have formed on the hillsides.  There wasn’t much climbing around on rocks, since we all had snowshoes on, but I’d love to go explore a lil’ more another time.  We started out with a pretty vague agenda: get to Angel Rocks and see how we feel from there.  We felt good, so we decided to tackle the remaining trail to Chena Hot Springs, which made it an 8.5 mile trip.

There was a bit of trailblazing through waist-deep snowdrifts, but overall everything went smoothly.  We had a beautiful view from up at the top of the trail!  If only the wind had let up a bit so we could’ve stayed up there and enjoyed it a bit, but oh well.  I suppose it’s an even more special memory for the fact that it was appreciated so briefly.  After a few more hours, arriving at hot springs by the end of our hike was a much appreciated reward!

Now, on to the food!  We love the second-hand store here in Fairbanks.  I go there every Friday on my work break, and almost always find some surprise treasure.  Joe’s been hunting for some new sweaters, so recently we’ve been swinging by there a couple times a week, or whenever we’re doing errands.  Joe’s prized find last week was a pasta maker, in great condition.

We don’t eat much pasta.  The only noodles you’ll find in our cabin are soba noodles, and even those get eaten rarely.  I try to eat only grain products that have been soaked or fermented, and pasta sure doesn’t fall in that category.  But, Joe had this pasta machine, and he really wanted to try it out, so I thought of a pasta meal I could be excited about.  In the future we’re gonna try sourdough noodles, or noodles made with sprouted flour, but for the first go around, we kept things simple.  One surprise: I didn’t realize homemade pasta had so much egg in it!  Knowing the noodles had a good dose of healthy protein made me enjoy them a bit more.

But I’m not sharing the pasta recipe.  It was good, but we’ll come up with a healthier one before too long.  For now, I’m sharing the part of the meal that excited me a whole lot more: my grandma’s spaghetti & meatballs.  For much of my life, I would’ve told you I hated spaghetti.  It’s one of my dad’s favorite meals, so we ate it many times growing up, and I always found it boring and not all that tasty.  Something about the ground meat mixed into the tomato sauce just didn’t appeal to me; I would sometimes ask my mom to keep a bit of the sauce separate for me before she added meat to the rest.

Then my mom tried this recipe, from a much-loved cookbook my grandma had put together.  And suddenly, there was a spaghetti I liked!  The sauce was perfect, thick and smooth and flavorful, and the meatballs were hearty and also deliciously flavorful.  From that point on, my “I hate spaghetti” stance was a bit more moderated.

Joe & I still had a bit of ground moose frozen, left from making empanadas.  Since the days are warming up and we’re reaching the end of being able to stick things outside and keep them frozen without any effort, we’ve been trying to eat up our frozen food.  We’re also leaving Fairbanks in a couple weeks for our summer jobs, so have another good reason to eat the food we’ve got laying around.  So, when Joe got his pasta machine, and I was brainstorming what kind of pasta dish we could make that sounded good to me, I thought of that moose meat and immediately went to grandma’s spaghetti and meatballs.

I barely tweaked the sauce recipe; it’s mostly the same as what came from grandma’s Kentucky kitchen.  The original meatball recipe calls for grated parmesan cheese, which, my mom insists, is what makes it so yummy, but of course that wasn’t an option for us.  If you’d like to add some, go ahead and throw in a quarter cup or so.  If you’re not a meat-eater, I’ve seen lentil “meatball” recipes that I’m interested in trying, or you could just make the sauce; it’s absolutely delicious by itself!

Grandma’s Spaghetti & Meatballs
serves 4

Sauce: 
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz crushed tomatoes
6 oz tomato paste
1-2 cups water
1 tsp basil
1 Tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp evaporated cane sugar
1 tsp oregano
fresh ground pepper

Heat olive oil in a large, heavy pan.  Saute onion and garlic until transparent.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for about 2 hours, adding a bit of water to adjust thickness if needed.

Meatballs:
1/2 pound ground meat
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup bread crumbs (we used some of our whole wheat sourdough)
2 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup milk (we used coconut milk, since it was the only non-dairy milk around, and, although it seemed a bit weird at first, it totally worked fine)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

Combine all ingredients and use your hands to mix thoroughly.  Shape into about 24 meatballs.  Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, or until cooked through.  Gently add to the sauce and cook for about 10-15 minutes more.

Enjoy!!!