Celebrating Native American Heritage Month With A Blue Corn Noodle Recipe

It has been quite a bit since my last post! I have had so many great things happening offline that blogging had to take a backseat for awhile. I have become co-manager of the commercial kitchen at the Wheatridge Center For Arts & Music, and with it, I am building a program aimed to help BIPOC women starting a small food business. We hope to get to the point that we can give heavily discounted kitchen time to help new BIPOC owners gain a footing in the food industry. I will also be planting this spring at our new indigenous plant garden that will be next to the commercial kitchen.

I have been accepted into the Innovation Challenge put together by Regis University.

Through the process of putting together my pitch for this challenge I have been able to build on the bigger picture for this social enterprise. I want to grow more indigenous varieties of plants on a larger scale and with that, comes so many more opportunities for preservation & education. It is our plan to one day have a regenerative educational farm built from the pillars of indigenous knowledge. I have many exciting plant varieties that I want to bring back to our communities that are drought and heat resistant.

It is important that we start to shift the crops and the way we grow here in Colorado to account for our arid climate that is continuously getting warmer. Through our own farmland we can also teach other farmers and community members how to change their ways to be more environmentally friendly & sustainable. The crops that come from the farm will be used in our product line, further growing the demand of these amazing indigenous plant foods.

Over the next 5 months we will work closely with the professional team who chose to help us reach our potential.

I have been teaching an indigenous kid's cooking class with Spirit Of the Sun, and it is amazing to be around so many talented individuals. They are excited to learn, they are so eager to use these amazing indigenous ingredients, and they want to feel closer to their culture. I wanted to make sure to post a healthy recipe in honor of Native American Heritage Month, and these blue corn noodles have been a favorite in my house for quite awhile. These kids (and young adults) are exactly who I honor and celebrate with this recipe.

Blue corn has been here to sustain my people's lives and it continues to be there for each future generation. I am proud to be able to show others how to prepare this corn in many different ways so it can continue to be a staple ingredient for all of the members of our community. Welcoming blue corn into your kitchen is also welcoming in many generations of indigenous ancestors who saved these seeds and passed them on.

I pair these noodles with different sauces. The sauce in the first picture is an avocado, roasted onion, garlic, and spicy green pepper sauce. The second picture is the blue corn noodles with a roasted red pepper, corn, onion, garlic sauce topped with stuffed squash blossoms. I haven't been brave enough to try Italian pasta sauce with them, so if you do, please come back and leave a comment on the taste!

You can make these noodles into any shapes you would like. It is very easy to do so. They do not hold shape as well as a wheat noodle. You could play around with the recipe and add a 1/4 cup of wheat or gluten free flour and they would probably hold together better. The smaller size has not been an issue for my family.

When it comes to cooking with blue corn it can have a little bit of learning curve because the exact amount of hot water you should use can vary. If the noodles are not holding together well and feel dry, then you need to add more hot water. If your dough is too sticky it is too wet and needs more blue corn to absorb the excess water.

Blue Corn Noodles Recipe

Ingredients

1 Cup of Blue Corn & Juniper Ash

3 Tablespoons Of Unmodified Potato Starch

Generous Pinch Of Salt

2/3 Cup+ Boiling Water or broth

POt of salted Boiling Water To cook noodles in

Directions

1. Mix blue corn flour, unmodified potato starch, and pinch of salt together in a glass or plastic bowl.

2. Add 1/3 cup of boiling water or broth to the dry mix and stir well. Add the rest of the water and it should form a nice dough that is not very sticky. If it is too dry, add more hot liquid a little bit at a time. The recipe is very forgiving, you can add more flour if you need to!

3. You can make the dough by rolling it out and cutting it into strips, you can hand roll it into round noodles, or you can make little dumpling sized noodles by pinching off a little bit . It is up to you what type of texture you would like and how long you want to spend making noodles!

4. Put the noodles in the salted boiling water. Cook for about 7 minutes. They should float to the top when done. The thicker the noodle the longer it will take to cook!

5. Gently strain the noodles from the hot water and add to sauce.

Notes: You can add a tablespoon of oil to the noodles if you would like. You can also add a bit of oil to the boiling water but it is completely optional.