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Recipe Add-Ons

All the instructions you need to make the other recipes!

Clarified Butter
Makes 1 1/2 cups

1 pound unsalted butter

Gently heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. The butter will separate into three layers. Foam will appear on the surface of the butter, the milk solids will migrate to the bottom of the pan, and the clarified butter will float between the two. This should only take a few minutes. Skim the foamy layer off with a spoon and discard. Next, carefully pour the golden middle layer into a jar, leaving the milk solids at the bottom. (Discard the solids, too.)

Clarified butter will keep for a month or two at room temperature and a month or so longer when refrigerated.

Toasting Nuts and Seeds

In a skillet (flatter nuts and seed, such as pine nuts, sesame seeds and those that have been chopped):
Place nuts and seeds in a single layer in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Toss them around every few minutes until fragrant and toasty. Don’t walk away, or if you must, set a timer for just a couple of minutes so you don’t forget.

In the oven (rounder nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts and peanuts):
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the nuts on a rimmed baking sheet so they don’t roll off, and toast until they start to darken and get fragrant. Toasting time varies depending on the nut, but this usually takes just a few minutes. The nuts toward the edges tend to brown faster, so stir the nuts or the pan a shake a time or two during baking.

Whole-Grain Breadcrumbs

Day-or-two-old whole-grain bread, crusts removed

Pulse the bread (in batches if necessary) in a food processor until you have a textured crumb. Sift out the fine, sandy crumbs that collect at the bottom of the processor, which leaves just the good stuff, but this is an extra step you don’t have to take.

Recipe excerpted from Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking by Heidi Swanson (Celestial Arts, 2007).