When I attended the Weston A. Price Foundation Conference last year in Philadelphia, I was absolutely overwhelmed with information. I knew I could not change everything in my kitchen overnight. I didn't have the money. But over the last year, I've made quite a few changes as I learned more and figured out more.
Now, I'm thinking about food storage more and more. Most of the stuff I make in large batches is stored in glass jars. My husband is amazed at how many jars I've managed to accumulate. There are rows and rows of glass jars in my pantry and there are a bunch of them in my deep freezer as well. And many things are stored in glass in the refrigerator as well.
But, I've not yet gotten rid of all of my plastic ware.
I pack my own lunch each day before I head off to work. I've even started packing on days I have court (my job involves testifying in court once or twice a week). It was a treat for me to eat in a restaurant on a court day, but I noticed that two to three days later, my face would break out and my gut would become unhappy again. When I miraculously went a whole month without a court day (and thus, no restaurant food), I had a whole month with no skin breakouts or bowel issues. Hmmm.
But back to the plastic packaging. Putting liquids like raw milk or kombucha into pint jars makes sense. But what do I do about the meat, fermented veggies and fruit? Too many jars in a lunch box makes for a very heavy lunch box and one that makes loud clanking noises! So, I have been using small plastic ware containers to carry my food to work.
I'm not a scientist but I'm concerned that some of the acids in my food, even without heating, are causing some of the plastics to leach into my food. Not good. We do have a good set up at work now with a two burner electric stove top and a toaster oven, a full sized refrigerator. My co-workers use the microwave a lot but I avoid it. I brought in a stainless steel sauce pan and a small stainless steel tray for the toaster oven.
But now, I'm looking for a way to transport and store my lunch that is affordable and not overly heavy. I'm going to experiment with some waxed paper and keep an eye out for stainless steel containers.
If anyone can recommend something let me know.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Clutter, Chaos and Creativity
I live in an older home. It was built around 1910. I should say it was assembled because according to what we have been able to figure out since moving in over 20 years ago, the original structure had two rooms up and two rooms down. It has a front porch across the front of the house. It was a cute, tiny house. There was no indoor plumbing and the staircase was in the middle of the house. Not long after that, an additional two rooms were added at the back of the house. The rooms were stacked one above the over and a porch was added to the side. We think these rooms came along as this young farming family grew.
Then, a shed from another, older home, that had burned down, was loaded up on skids and dragged over. It was attached to the main house via the side porch. A third porch was added to the back of the house. It had a concrete floor like the other two porches. This shed was turned into the summer kitchen.
When I moved here in August of 1989, there was no front door. A pieced of plywood covered the entrance. There were pieces of an wood cook stove scattered about the summer kitchen, but there was not enough left of it to re-assemble it and make something that worked. At some point in the 1960s someone had installed a bathroom under the stairs which had been moved to one side of the house. The two back porches had been enclosed and the supporting wall had been removed. The roof had started to sag at that point and other than putting in front door, we immediately re-enforced the foundation and put in a pole to get the ceiling back into place.
Over the course of the last 20 years, we have ripped out cloth wiring, installed new plumbing, torn out rotten plaster, repaired termite damage, rebuilt part of the foundation, replaced all 42 windows and put on vinyl siding, enclosed half of the front porch and repaired the rest. We repaired the 75 year tin roof as best we could because we could not afford to replace it. The back porch became our laundry room. We have one room left to paint and that is the master bedroom. The whole house needs to be repainted and some of the floors we laid down need to be replaced (we used the cheap linoleum at the time and it's now wearing out).
This house has been a lot of work. I love that we can now open all the windows and let the prevailing breeze through and, except when temperatures exceed 90 with high humidity, the house stays pretty cool.
I also love my kitchen. Nothing is built in. All of the cabinets and counters and tables and appliances can be removed. The only fixture is the sink and I kept the giant ceramic sink that came with the house. I have my eye on a new kitchen faucet, but that is on my wish list. The water heater is in the kitchen. It was there when I moved in. Anticipating that it would probably die not long after we moved in, as it is probably older than I am (50+), we installed pipe to the laundry room and put a cap on the end. It's still doing a nice job of heating our water and as a result, I still do laundry with cold water. But eventually, it will die and we will install a new, energy efficient model in the laundry room and run the hot water from there to the rest of the house.
But back to the kitchen. Here is my kitchen table. When the boys were home, it sat squarely in the middle of the room and we all sat around it for meals. After the boys moved out on their own, I re-oriented the thing and now use it as extra counter space.
So what is all that stuff? Under the table is my stock pot and 60 pound bucket of honey. On top is a batch of sour dough starter, some butter, kefir, a bowl of mixed crispy nuts with organic raisins, a bunch of parsley from my garden, some local honey with the comb in, the large glass jar has a little bit of sprouted and freshly ground rye flour. The paper bag contains a partly eaten loaf of sourdough rye bread. On that table is also a jar of Kumbucha and a jar of some fermenting veggies.
My husband thinks my kitchen is in constant chaos. I prefer to think of it as a catalyst for creativity.
Then, a shed from another, older home, that had burned down, was loaded up on skids and dragged over. It was attached to the main house via the side porch. A third porch was added to the back of the house. It had a concrete floor like the other two porches. This shed was turned into the summer kitchen.
When I moved here in August of 1989, there was no front door. A pieced of plywood covered the entrance. There were pieces of an wood cook stove scattered about the summer kitchen, but there was not enough left of it to re-assemble it and make something that worked. At some point in the 1960s someone had installed a bathroom under the stairs which had been moved to one side of the house. The two back porches had been enclosed and the supporting wall had been removed. The roof had started to sag at that point and other than putting in front door, we immediately re-enforced the foundation and put in a pole to get the ceiling back into place.
Over the course of the last 20 years, we have ripped out cloth wiring, installed new plumbing, torn out rotten plaster, repaired termite damage, rebuilt part of the foundation, replaced all 42 windows and put on vinyl siding, enclosed half of the front porch and repaired the rest. We repaired the 75 year tin roof as best we could because we could not afford to replace it. The back porch became our laundry room. We have one room left to paint and that is the master bedroom. The whole house needs to be repainted and some of the floors we laid down need to be replaced (we used the cheap linoleum at the time and it's now wearing out).
This house has been a lot of work. I love that we can now open all the windows and let the prevailing breeze through and, except when temperatures exceed 90 with high humidity, the house stays pretty cool.
I also love my kitchen. Nothing is built in. All of the cabinets and counters and tables and appliances can be removed. The only fixture is the sink and I kept the giant ceramic sink that came with the house. I have my eye on a new kitchen faucet, but that is on my wish list. The water heater is in the kitchen. It was there when I moved in. Anticipating that it would probably die not long after we moved in, as it is probably older than I am (50+), we installed pipe to the laundry room and put a cap on the end. It's still doing a nice job of heating our water and as a result, I still do laundry with cold water. But eventually, it will die and we will install a new, energy efficient model in the laundry room and run the hot water from there to the rest of the house.
So what is all that stuff? Under the table is my stock pot and 60 pound bucket of honey. On top is a batch of sour dough starter, some butter, kefir, a bowl of mixed crispy nuts with organic raisins, a bunch of parsley from my garden, some local honey with the comb in, the large glass jar has a little bit of sprouted and freshly ground rye flour. The paper bag contains a partly eaten loaf of sourdough rye bread. On that table is also a jar of Kumbucha and a jar of some fermenting veggies.
My husband thinks my kitchen is in constant chaos. I prefer to think of it as a catalyst for creativity.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Feasting with Non-Believers
I'm not talking about the religious issues that sometimes happen in large, extended families like mine, but the food issues. We are a family of five kids with six grandkids. Four of us were in town for the holiday. Mom and Dad were not up to traveling and opted not to join us this year.
Let me give you a rundown of the various challenges we face as a small clan eating together.:
I'm allergic to soy. I'm also very overweight unlike the rest of my family, most of whom are rather thin. I also battle depression from time to time. One son is allergic to lemons. Another son of mine is allergic to nuts (all nuts both peanut and tree nut). For a while I blamed myself for their problems, but I've come to realize that when they were little, all I knew was the craziness spouted by the government. We ate low fat everything and super processed everything. I got fat, and we all developed allergies and gut problems. The boys have moved away from home and as young men who work at Pizza Hut for a living, their diets, quite frankly, are a little frightening. I send them real food from time to time. I'm giving them both a two pound block of butter for Christmas along with pastured pork, beef, and eggs and maybe a couple of pastured chickens. My husband developed several blockages in his heart veins years before we met. Just after we were married, a stent was installed and he was put on statins. I will talk about his medical adventures following his start on WAP in future entries.
My baby sister's daughter is on the GAPS diet to help address her autism (she was adopted at 6 months old from the former Soviet Union and arrived with digestive problems) and to help her daughter along, she has put her whole family on a modified Gaps diet. This is sister is very thin, as is her son. Her husband and daughter were struggling with weight until they went on GAPS and they each lost a lot of weight and her daughter grew several inches.Her husband has also struggled with depression.
My sister-in-law, the Food Nazi, has a lifelong allergy to corn and is a longtime follower of Weight Watchers so most of her food is soy based. She also works in the food industry and will not eat anything that is preserved in cans at home or fermented unless it was done in commercial building. She is thin. Her daughters are all thin. My brother battles his weight constantly but she claims it is because he "cheats" and eats junk when he is working. He was very thin when he was younger. We call her the Food Nazi, because she cleans everything, including her hands and some foods with bleach water. She's freaky about it.
My other brother is married to a native of China. He suffered from terrible gut problems his whole life and was painfully thin. He married late in life but I believe she saved his life. She began feeding him fermented foods, took him off of all dairy products and they eat made-from-scratch soup every single day (sometimes a couple of times a day). She feeds him no bread at all. I'm thinking she has got him on something as close to GAPS as possible without a handbook. He reports he has no more problems with his guts except when he eats an occasional pizza, so they are avoiding that as much as possible (I'm thinking he has Celiac's Disease). She is an excellent cook and it's fun to look into her cupboards as everything is labeled in Chinese and she has lots of mysterious and wonderful mushrooms, dried vegetables and other goodies in there. Her refrigerator is filled with fresh vegetables and her table is decorated with a variety of fresh fruits like clementines, pineapples and bartlett pears. I was deeply impressed to find that she has a couple of little Buddha statues each of whom had a perfect, fresh apple and a pretty stone bead bracelet nearby.
Middle sister lives in Colorado and did not make it out this year.
This year, despite everyone knowing everyone's allergies, there was a lot of food that was not consumed. The Food Nazi put margarine in everything she cooked and even put lemon in the sweet potatoes. She prepared the gravy, sweet potatoes and the stuffing. She will not let us stuff the turkey itself because she is an FDA food freak and believes we will all die of salmonella poisoning if we eat a turkey with stuffing in it. He daughter prepared the pies and while they got rave reviews, I could not eat them due to the crust being prepared iwth margarine.
I fixed the green bean casserole using scratch mushroom gravy which started with a beef bone broth, organic green beans and onion rings fried in pastured pig leaf lard. It was completely gluten free as well because I used tapioca flour for the thickeners and the onion breading. I also made deviled eggs using mayonaise I made using a good quality olive oil and pastured eggs. I did use store bought capers as part of the stuffing. I also made a pickle tray with gluten free crackers, homemade yogurt cheese from raw milk, a variety of ferments and homemade pickles both sour and bread and butter pickles. I also made a liver pate.
My sister with the Gaps family, brought a lovely salad, a fruit salad with coconut and put the chopped pecan crispy nuts on the side (thank you!). She also brought gluten free rolls she made. They were good but contained nuts, so one son could not eat them.
The turkey was prepared by my brother and his wife. She is from China and so this whole Thanksgiving thing is quite amazing to her. They did a great job with this large bird and everyone enjoyed it. Food Nazi managed to make the carcass disappear into the trash before Gaps mom or I could get to it and so all that wonderful boney goodness was lost.
I suggested to Gaps mom that next year I will host and she and I will prepared everything. Food Nazi can bring her own food if she wants, but the rest of us need something to eat that is safe.
Let me give you a rundown of the various challenges we face as a small clan eating together.:
I'm allergic to soy. I'm also very overweight unlike the rest of my family, most of whom are rather thin. I also battle depression from time to time. One son is allergic to lemons. Another son of mine is allergic to nuts (all nuts both peanut and tree nut). For a while I blamed myself for their problems, but I've come to realize that when they were little, all I knew was the craziness spouted by the government. We ate low fat everything and super processed everything. I got fat, and we all developed allergies and gut problems. The boys have moved away from home and as young men who work at Pizza Hut for a living, their diets, quite frankly, are a little frightening. I send them real food from time to time. I'm giving them both a two pound block of butter for Christmas along with pastured pork, beef, and eggs and maybe a couple of pastured chickens. My husband developed several blockages in his heart veins years before we met. Just after we were married, a stent was installed and he was put on statins. I will talk about his medical adventures following his start on WAP in future entries.
My baby sister's daughter is on the GAPS diet to help address her autism (she was adopted at 6 months old from the former Soviet Union and arrived with digestive problems) and to help her daughter along, she has put her whole family on a modified Gaps diet. This is sister is very thin, as is her son. Her husband and daughter were struggling with weight until they went on GAPS and they each lost a lot of weight and her daughter grew several inches.Her husband has also struggled with depression.
My sister-in-law, the Food Nazi, has a lifelong allergy to corn and is a longtime follower of Weight Watchers so most of her food is soy based. She also works in the food industry and will not eat anything that is preserved in cans at home or fermented unless it was done in commercial building. She is thin. Her daughters are all thin. My brother battles his weight constantly but she claims it is because he "cheats" and eats junk when he is working. He was very thin when he was younger. We call her the Food Nazi, because she cleans everything, including her hands and some foods with bleach water. She's freaky about it.
My other brother is married to a native of China. He suffered from terrible gut problems his whole life and was painfully thin. He married late in life but I believe she saved his life. She began feeding him fermented foods, took him off of all dairy products and they eat made-from-scratch soup every single day (sometimes a couple of times a day). She feeds him no bread at all. I'm thinking she has got him on something as close to GAPS as possible without a handbook. He reports he has no more problems with his guts except when he eats an occasional pizza, so they are avoiding that as much as possible (I'm thinking he has Celiac's Disease). She is an excellent cook and it's fun to look into her cupboards as everything is labeled in Chinese and she has lots of mysterious and wonderful mushrooms, dried vegetables and other goodies in there. Her refrigerator is filled with fresh vegetables and her table is decorated with a variety of fresh fruits like clementines, pineapples and bartlett pears. I was deeply impressed to find that she has a couple of little Buddha statues each of whom had a perfect, fresh apple and a pretty stone bead bracelet nearby.
Middle sister lives in Colorado and did not make it out this year.
This year, despite everyone knowing everyone's allergies, there was a lot of food that was not consumed. The Food Nazi put margarine in everything she cooked and even put lemon in the sweet potatoes. She prepared the gravy, sweet potatoes and the stuffing. She will not let us stuff the turkey itself because she is an FDA food freak and believes we will all die of salmonella poisoning if we eat a turkey with stuffing in it. He daughter prepared the pies and while they got rave reviews, I could not eat them due to the crust being prepared iwth margarine.
I fixed the green bean casserole using scratch mushroom gravy which started with a beef bone broth, organic green beans and onion rings fried in pastured pig leaf lard. It was completely gluten free as well because I used tapioca flour for the thickeners and the onion breading. I also made deviled eggs using mayonaise I made using a good quality olive oil and pastured eggs. I did use store bought capers as part of the stuffing. I also made a pickle tray with gluten free crackers, homemade yogurt cheese from raw milk, a variety of ferments and homemade pickles both sour and bread and butter pickles. I also made a liver pate.
My sister with the Gaps family, brought a lovely salad, a fruit salad with coconut and put the chopped pecan crispy nuts on the side (thank you!). She also brought gluten free rolls she made. They were good but contained nuts, so one son could not eat them.
The turkey was prepared by my brother and his wife. She is from China and so this whole Thanksgiving thing is quite amazing to her. They did a great job with this large bird and everyone enjoyed it. Food Nazi managed to make the carcass disappear into the trash before Gaps mom or I could get to it and so all that wonderful boney goodness was lost.
I suggested to Gaps mom that next year I will host and she and I will prepared everything. Food Nazi can bring her own food if she wants, but the rest of us need something to eat that is safe.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Soaked Granola
Eating real food on a budget is a real challenge for a lot of families. Moving into this world of real food is challenging to do all at one time and it helps to do things one step at a time as you can afford it. One of the first things I did was replace my aluminum and teflon coated cookware with stainless steel cookware. I already had a lot of cast iron pans acquired over the course of a decade. I found a wonderful glass bowl collection at Target once. It was on sale and I splurged. Little by little, I've changed out my cooking utensils to get rid of the plastic.
I found over the course of about 3 months that NOT buying junk like breakfast cereal, snack cakes, chips, candy and most commercial bread; saved enough money for me to make one or two LARGE bulk purchases each month that last me for 6 or more months. For example, I bought a 50 pound bag of organic wheat berries and another 50 pound bag of organic rye berries for about $1.27 a pound. I soak the grains and spout then dry them, grind them in a grain grinder and make my own sprouted flours. A cup of raw wheat makes about 2 cups of flour. I can make a loaf of bread with about 3 1/2 cups. There are a lot of cups of wheat in a 50 pound bag. I store them in galvanized tins in an unheated and unused bedroom. I sprinkle grain with food grade Diatomaceous earth to keep the weavils out. Basically, I'm using about 50 cents of grain to make a loaf of bread. I also purchase yeast in bulk and keep it in the freezer.
Equipment is expensive, but when cared for properly. lasts for many years. I could not do this without my very large deep freezer. I keep it set below zero and I can keep foods for a very, very long time. It does not auto defrost, so I have to do that manually once a year or so, but that's an easy job. The grain grinder and my table top electric mixer are very important. I also have a meat grinder attachment for my electric mixer and a food processor and stick blender. I do not have a microwave, or a toaster.
Some basic foods like coconut oil, nuts, sea salt, and meat are much cheaper purchased in bulk. It's just a little scary to anticipate and budget for 1/2 beef, for example when you know you will be paying $1000 or more in a lump sum. But you are purchasing a year's worth of beef at one time. Sit down and really figure out what you are paying when you buy a year's worth of meat in incremental bits. I bet it will be more. What's nice about making that large bulk purchase of pastured beef from a local farmer is that you can very specifically dictate how you want your cuts done, how much of it is going to be ground beef, you get the organs. If you really get the opportunity to work out details, you can also ask for the hide -- if you have a use for it.
Start small and go for a 1/2 lamb. Then try 1/2 a hog. Find someone with pastured chickens and buy 6 of them. My husband fishes, but he does not hunt; but I know hunters and most years they will bring me a whole deer if I pay for the tag. You see why I need a large freezer.
If I could talk my husband into it, I would buy two of them and have one for meat and one for vegetables, fruit and other home prepared foods like broth.
But let me share my recipe for CHEAP healthy granola. Buy all the ingredients in bulk.
Soaked Granola
2 cups of organic raw oatmeal
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 cups of warm water
1/4 cup of dried fruit (I like organic raisins or cherries)
1/2 cup of crispy nuts (pecans or walnuts)
1/2 cup of crispy pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup flaked coconut
Put the oatmeal in a large glass bowl, stir the sea salt into the warm water until dissolved. Pour liquid over the oatmeal. Stir gently until all the oatmeal is submerged. Cover the bowl with a towel and put on the counter overnight.
In the morning drain the oatmeal through a colander and rinse. Dump back in the bowl. Heat coconut oil and maple syrup in a sauce pan until blended and the oil is melted. Pour oil and syrup mixture over the oats and stir a couple of times. Spread the wet oatmeal out onto a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with edges). Put in the oven and set the temperature to just below warm. Leave for 8 hours. I put it in before I go to work and take it out when I get home. Once dried it will be crispy. Break it up and put it into a dry bowl. Add the fruit, nuts and seeds and coconut flakes. Stir. Store in quart jars. Eat with yogurt, kefir or raw milk.
I found over the course of about 3 months that NOT buying junk like breakfast cereal, snack cakes, chips, candy and most commercial bread; saved enough money for me to make one or two LARGE bulk purchases each month that last me for 6 or more months. For example, I bought a 50 pound bag of organic wheat berries and another 50 pound bag of organic rye berries for about $1.27 a pound. I soak the grains and spout then dry them, grind them in a grain grinder and make my own sprouted flours. A cup of raw wheat makes about 2 cups of flour. I can make a loaf of bread with about 3 1/2 cups. There are a lot of cups of wheat in a 50 pound bag. I store them in galvanized tins in an unheated and unused bedroom. I sprinkle grain with food grade Diatomaceous earth to keep the weavils out. Basically, I'm using about 50 cents of grain to make a loaf of bread. I also purchase yeast in bulk and keep it in the freezer.
Equipment is expensive, but when cared for properly. lasts for many years. I could not do this without my very large deep freezer. I keep it set below zero and I can keep foods for a very, very long time. It does not auto defrost, so I have to do that manually once a year or so, but that's an easy job. The grain grinder and my table top electric mixer are very important. I also have a meat grinder attachment for my electric mixer and a food processor and stick blender. I do not have a microwave, or a toaster.
Some basic foods like coconut oil, nuts, sea salt, and meat are much cheaper purchased in bulk. It's just a little scary to anticipate and budget for 1/2 beef, for example when you know you will be paying $1000 or more in a lump sum. But you are purchasing a year's worth of beef at one time. Sit down and really figure out what you are paying when you buy a year's worth of meat in incremental bits. I bet it will be more. What's nice about making that large bulk purchase of pastured beef from a local farmer is that you can very specifically dictate how you want your cuts done, how much of it is going to be ground beef, you get the organs. If you really get the opportunity to work out details, you can also ask for the hide -- if you have a use for it.
Start small and go for a 1/2 lamb. Then try 1/2 a hog. Find someone with pastured chickens and buy 6 of them. My husband fishes, but he does not hunt; but I know hunters and most years they will bring me a whole deer if I pay for the tag. You see why I need a large freezer.
If I could talk my husband into it, I would buy two of them and have one for meat and one for vegetables, fruit and other home prepared foods like broth.
But let me share my recipe for CHEAP healthy granola. Buy all the ingredients in bulk.
Soaked Granola
2 cups of organic raw oatmeal
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 cups of warm water
1/4 cup of dried fruit (I like organic raisins or cherries)
1/2 cup of crispy nuts (pecans or walnuts)
1/2 cup of crispy pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds
1/4 cup maple syrup or honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup flaked coconut
Put the oatmeal in a large glass bowl, stir the sea salt into the warm water until dissolved. Pour liquid over the oatmeal. Stir gently until all the oatmeal is submerged. Cover the bowl with a towel and put on the counter overnight.
In the morning drain the oatmeal through a colander and rinse. Dump back in the bowl. Heat coconut oil and maple syrup in a sauce pan until blended and the oil is melted. Pour oil and syrup mixture over the oats and stir a couple of times. Spread the wet oatmeal out onto a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with edges). Put in the oven and set the temperature to just below warm. Leave for 8 hours. I put it in before I go to work and take it out when I get home. Once dried it will be crispy. Break it up and put it into a dry bowl. Add the fruit, nuts and seeds and coconut flakes. Stir. Store in quart jars. Eat with yogurt, kefir or raw milk.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Kefir Experiments Continue
I made a pint with the kefir starter and some raw milk. I put it out on the table overnight and then chilled it. I found it quite nice but not very bubbly when I drank some of it. I also did not find any grains. I decided that perhaps I needed to wait longer than overnight (you think?). I put the remaining 1/3rd cup into a clean pint jar and added 1/3 cup of fresh raw milk and again left it out over night. I will call this Jar #1. Then I added another 1/3rd cup of milk and again left it out overnight.
This time, it separated. So I stirred it gently with a wooden spoon, poured half into a second pint jar (Jar #2) and added fresh raw milk to both. Both went into the frig.
The next day, I very carefully poured all the soured milk off the top of Jar #2 into a clean container and poured the remainder into a small jelly jar and added 1/4 cup of milk. This is Jar #3. The jelly jar was left out on the counter for two days without disturbance, then I added a little more milk to it and put it in the frig.
All the jars remained refrigerated for four days undisturbed.
This morning, I decided to check things out and see what I had.
Jar #1 was fizzy and had a very mild sour smell and flavor.
Jar #2 was still separating into solids and whey and seemed more sour in odor. I have not tasted it.
Jar #3 actually had lumps that look like kefir grains!
So, put my new grains in their own little pint jar, topped it off with fresh milk and will leave it out until this evening and refrigerate it. I poured myself a small jelly glass of Jar #1 and topped it up and will leave it out at room temp until dinner time today.
I added a teaspoon of raw honey to the glass I had poured and stirred and stirred. I finally licked the remaining honey off the spoon and drank the kefir. Ambrosia.
I now understand the Biblical references to "The Land of Milk and Honey." Wow!
With this heady treat in my tummy, I went on to jar up one crock of sauerkraut, started a batch of sourdough starter for my sister, and re-arranged my pantry shelves and sorted out the frig to make room for the newly jarred kraut.
This time, it separated. So I stirred it gently with a wooden spoon, poured half into a second pint jar (Jar #2) and added fresh raw milk to both. Both went into the frig.
The next day, I very carefully poured all the soured milk off the top of Jar #2 into a clean container and poured the remainder into a small jelly jar and added 1/4 cup of milk. This is Jar #3. The jelly jar was left out on the counter for two days without disturbance, then I added a little more milk to it and put it in the frig.
All the jars remained refrigerated for four days undisturbed.
This morning, I decided to check things out and see what I had.
Jar #1 was fizzy and had a very mild sour smell and flavor.
Jar #2 was still separating into solids and whey and seemed more sour in odor. I have not tasted it.
Jar #3 actually had lumps that look like kefir grains!
So, put my new grains in their own little pint jar, topped it off with fresh milk and will leave it out until this evening and refrigerate it. I poured myself a small jelly glass of Jar #1 and topped it up and will leave it out at room temp until dinner time today.
I added a teaspoon of raw honey to the glass I had poured and stirred and stirred. I finally licked the remaining honey off the spoon and drank the kefir. Ambrosia.
I now understand the Biblical references to "The Land of Milk and Honey." Wow!
With this heady treat in my tummy, I went on to jar up one crock of sauerkraut, started a batch of sourdough starter for my sister, and re-arranged my pantry shelves and sorted out the frig to make room for the newly jarred kraut.
The Chocolate Fix
I have found that over the course of the last year, as I'm working my way further and further from processed foods and eating more healthy food; my craving for sugary treats like cookies and cake has diminished quite a bit. What has taken longer to lose is an occasional, overwhelming desire for chocolate candy. What has kept that in check is the challenge of finding a chocolate candy that does not contain soy.
There are a few. One that I have found is made by Rapunzel. They make an Organic Dark Chocolate bar that is soy free. It does contain organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa beans, organic cocoa butter, and organic vanilla. One square will usually satisfy me for a week or more. The last bar I purchased survived on my kitchen counter for well over 3 months before we finally finished it off with a glass of red wine.
Recently, however, my local source for all things healthy is a tiny health food store in Callao, VA that just recently opened. It's called The Health Nut. They now have a web site. It is run by a delightful couple who reclaimed their health by learning to eat healthy food. He is a master smoothie maker and they have a little smoothie bar set up at the back of the shop. It's a great place for me to pop in on my way home from work and pick up things I need for dinner. She will also order special things for me when I ask. She'll get a half dozen of whatever I ordered and, so far, has found there is a market for the odd things I have requested - like walnut oil.
Anyway, as part of their Grand Opening Ceremonies, they had some samples of dishes made from items available in their shop. One of those things was the most awesome, sugar free, organic chocolate fix I've tasted yet. She gave me permission to share the recipe here:
Chocolate Cherry Truffles
Ingredients:
1 cup of dehydrated organic bing cherries
1 cup of crisy nuts (I used half pecans and half almonds)
2 tablespoons of good quality raw coconut oil (it should be solid at room temp)
4 tablespoons of Terr Amazon Organic Cocao Powder. Put 2 tablespoons aside for rolling later.
Put the cherries in your food processor. Give it a couple of pulses. Add the nuts. Give it a couple of more pulses. Add the coconut oil and 2 tablespoons of the cocoa powder. Hold the pulse button down for a bit and let it start to incorporate together. Scrap down the sides and pulse a little more until it forms into a ball (or blobs up on the sides like mine did). Put the whole mass in a small glass bowl -- you should have about 2 cups - cover and put in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, put the last two tablespoons of cocoa powder on a plate. Break off little hunks of the cherry nut mixture and roll into small balls -- about marble sized. Roll the balls in the cocoa powder. I layered them in tupperware between sheets of waxed paper. Keep refrigerated. Eat as needed.
Even my husband, the sugar fiend, loved these and after eating just one told me I was going to have to make more.
There are a few. One that I have found is made by Rapunzel. They make an Organic Dark Chocolate bar that is soy free. It does contain organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa beans, organic cocoa butter, and organic vanilla. One square will usually satisfy me for a week or more. The last bar I purchased survived on my kitchen counter for well over 3 months before we finally finished it off with a glass of red wine.
Recently, however, my local source for all things healthy is a tiny health food store in Callao, VA that just recently opened. It's called The Health Nut. They now have a web site. It is run by a delightful couple who reclaimed their health by learning to eat healthy food. He is a master smoothie maker and they have a little smoothie bar set up at the back of the shop. It's a great place for me to pop in on my way home from work and pick up things I need for dinner. She will also order special things for me when I ask. She'll get a half dozen of whatever I ordered and, so far, has found there is a market for the odd things I have requested - like walnut oil.
Anyway, as part of their Grand Opening Ceremonies, they had some samples of dishes made from items available in their shop. One of those things was the most awesome, sugar free, organic chocolate fix I've tasted yet. She gave me permission to share the recipe here:
Chocolate Cherry Truffles
Ingredients:
1 cup of dehydrated organic bing cherries
1 cup of crisy nuts (I used half pecans and half almonds)
2 tablespoons of good quality raw coconut oil (it should be solid at room temp)
4 tablespoons of Terr Amazon Organic Cocao Powder. Put 2 tablespoons aside for rolling later.
Put the cherries in your food processor. Give it a couple of pulses. Add the nuts. Give it a couple of more pulses. Add the coconut oil and 2 tablespoons of the cocoa powder. Hold the pulse button down for a bit and let it start to incorporate together. Scrap down the sides and pulse a little more until it forms into a ball (or blobs up on the sides like mine did). Put the whole mass in a small glass bowl -- you should have about 2 cups - cover and put in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, put the last two tablespoons of cocoa powder on a plate. Break off little hunks of the cherry nut mixture and roll into small balls -- about marble sized. Roll the balls in the cocoa powder. I layered them in tupperware between sheets of waxed paper. Keep refrigerated. Eat as needed.
Even my husband, the sugar fiend, loved these and after eating just one told me I was going to have to make more.
Friday, November 18, 2011
The Next Generation
My youngest grand-daughter (really a step grand-daughter, but who's counting?) is coming to visit us this weekend. Ken will pick her up after school and bring her up to spend the weekend.
I have several activities planned including weaving a scarf (or something) on the rigid heddle loom for Friday evening and we might make some healthy cookies or macaroons .. I think we might get Poppop to get out the Wii for a couple of games. I've already put a pastured chicken into the crock-pot with organic veggies including locally grown carrots, turnips, onions and a couple of potatoes. I need to avoid eating the potatoes as I'm trying to cut down on my carbs, but Ken loves them and feels a meal is not complete without them. He, unlike me, does not need to lose much (if any) weight. But he is one of those odd people who is perfectly happy eating only one meal a day. By the time he gets to it, he's really hungry and needs the carbs.
Saturday we plan to go pet a cow and perhaps see a pig or two. Then it's home to show her how to make yogurt so she can eat some on Sunday morning on some homemade soaked granola or soaked oatmeal or perhaps farm fresh eggs. I need to get a new sour dough batch going, so I will show her how to make a starter and will have to make her some bread from it at some point.
I'm taking some pickles down to Lively to a new friend from whom I'm getting pork in a couple of weeks. I've gone in with my sister and ordered half a hog. We are about done with the 1/2 lamb we got this summer and I believe we are out of beef for the most part (other than some bones). I plan to order 1/2 beef for this Spring. And next year I'm definitely going to get a whole lamb. Mom and my sister each want a 1/2 lamb, so that will be two whole animals from my favorite source for pastured lamb.
One batch of sauerkraut is ready to be jarred. I need to find some more pint jars before I start, however, so will stop at the hardware store on my way home today.
For my breakfast this morning, I'm drinking a cup of home made chicken bone broth with a tablespoon of coconut oil melted into it. I managed to burn my tongue pretty well on it first thing, but I'm enjoying it now. I'm only about 1/2 through the serving and already feeling satisfied, so I may just take it to work with me for later. I've started reading Eat Fat, Lose Fat and I can see it is really coconut oil heavy, so I will need to find an affordable source for a bulk purchase.
I've also cut down on my coffee quite a bit. I had two cups yesterday and a cup of tea and the rest of the day I drank water or decaffeinated tea. Today I had one cup of coffee and a large cup of tea (like a cup and a half) and plan to go fully decaffeinated the rest of the day.
I have several activities planned including weaving a scarf (or something) on the rigid heddle loom for Friday evening and we might make some healthy cookies or macaroons .. I think we might get Poppop to get out the Wii for a couple of games. I've already put a pastured chicken into the crock-pot with organic veggies including locally grown carrots, turnips, onions and a couple of potatoes. I need to avoid eating the potatoes as I'm trying to cut down on my carbs, but Ken loves them and feels a meal is not complete without them. He, unlike me, does not need to lose much (if any) weight. But he is one of those odd people who is perfectly happy eating only one meal a day. By the time he gets to it, he's really hungry and needs the carbs.
Saturday we plan to go pet a cow and perhaps see a pig or two. Then it's home to show her how to make yogurt so she can eat some on Sunday morning on some homemade soaked granola or soaked oatmeal or perhaps farm fresh eggs. I need to get a new sour dough batch going, so I will show her how to make a starter and will have to make her some bread from it at some point.
I'm taking some pickles down to Lively to a new friend from whom I'm getting pork in a couple of weeks. I've gone in with my sister and ordered half a hog. We are about done with the 1/2 lamb we got this summer and I believe we are out of beef for the most part (other than some bones). I plan to order 1/2 beef for this Spring. And next year I'm definitely going to get a whole lamb. Mom and my sister each want a 1/2 lamb, so that will be two whole animals from my favorite source for pastured lamb.
One batch of sauerkraut is ready to be jarred. I need to find some more pint jars before I start, however, so will stop at the hardware store on my way home today.
For my breakfast this morning, I'm drinking a cup of home made chicken bone broth with a tablespoon of coconut oil melted into it. I managed to burn my tongue pretty well on it first thing, but I'm enjoying it now. I'm only about 1/2 through the serving and already feeling satisfied, so I may just take it to work with me for later. I've started reading Eat Fat, Lose Fat and I can see it is really coconut oil heavy, so I will need to find an affordable source for a bulk purchase.
I've also cut down on my coffee quite a bit. I had two cups yesterday and a cup of tea and the rest of the day I drank water or decaffeinated tea. Today I had one cup of coffee and a large cup of tea (like a cup and a half) and plan to go fully decaffeinated the rest of the day.
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