Liver Muffins?

My mother’s diet is nearly bereft of organ meat and healthy fat thanks to her doctor who has scared her into believing dietary cholesterol is a big, bad meanie waiting in every bite of butter to stop her heart. It didn’t used to be that way. When I was a teen, we had liver and onions at least once a month, and liverwurst sandwiches once a week. I was never thrilled with the liver and onions, but loved liverwurst with mustard and pickles! My friends thought I was nuts.

I’ve been able to convince Mom of some new facts about organ meats…old facts, really, that the medical mainstream has ignored. But she still has an obstacle: a roommate who only eats a handful of food items and is unwilling to expand her horizons beyond them. My Christmas gift to mom this year was a year’s worth of liver pâté in single-servings to stock her freezer. Her roommate doesn’t have to smell the liver cooking, and Mom doesn’t have to go without. I started with a super recipe from Nourished Kitchen, but changed it up a little based on what was available.

Liver Pâté for One

1 lb Livers from Pasture-fed Turkeys
1 Quart Cultured Buttermilk
14 oz Ghee from Grass-fed Cows
2 Large Shallots
2 Tablespoons Fresh Thyme
½ Cup Sherry

Rinse livers gently, pat dry and put in a bowl with buttermilk. Allow livers to soak in buttermilk at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Drain livers and rinse again.

Heat 4 oz. ghee in a skillet until melted. Slice shallots thinly then add to ghee and brown. Pat livers dry then add to the onions and ghee. Simmer gently until cooked through and until the liquid they release has evaporated. Add the thyme and sherry, scraping up any browned bits from the skillet. Allow to cook down until the sound changes from bubbling to sizzling. Let skillet cool to room temperature.

Add liver mixture and 8 oz. of softened ghee to blender or food processor and process until smooth. Melt the remaining 2 oz. of ghee. Put paper cupcake liners into a cupcake pan with 12 holes. Spoon pâté into paper liners and pour melted ghee on top. Allow to set in the fridge for a few hours or overnight, then stack the pate cups, roll the stack in parchment paper and store in an airtight plastic container or bag in the freezer. Let the pâté come to room temperature before enjoying.

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday.

Warm, creamy, rich, vanilla-y, filling and very nourishing. What more could you want from a breakfast? I have to admit, I am not hungry most mornings until I’ve been up for a couple hours. But I’ve been reading some suggestions that you should eat within 30 minutes of your feet hitting the floor.  Instead of just saying “Ain’t gonna happen” and writing off that principle as an impossibility, I decided to try to find something that I could enjoy.

I like eggs, but most days even the thought of eggs that soon after rising makes my stomach do back flips. But I love cream. I’ve been making this custard to start my day, and it is something I could eat every day.

Mama’s Breakfast Custard
2 1/2 cups cream
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup (or less) maple syrup
pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 300°, put a teakettle of water on to boil. Warm the cream gently in a saucepan just until it steams. Beat the egg yolks with the syrup, salt and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Add the steaming cream to the eggs and beat well. Pour into six custard cups (I use the one-cup size) and place cups in a casserole dish. Carefully pour boiling water around the cups until the water on the outside is almost as high as the custard on the inside. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the custard is set all but right in the middle. Tip: Use a canning jar lifter to get the custard cups out of the hot water without burning your fingers!

You can enjoy them right away (my favorite) or store them in the fridge after letting them cool. This version has half as much sweetener as the recommended amount for a dessert custard, and I generally use much less than 1/4 cup. I’m not a big fan of sweets, especially in the morning, but find that a little sweetener brings out the flavors of the egg and vanilla nicely. This recipe has also worked well substituting honey or coconut sugar for the syrup.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, Fat Tuesday and Fight Back Friday.

I loved the dish we had for dinner last night. It was fast because I used my grass farmer’s tenderized turkey breast cutlets. It was chop-and-drop easy and included some of my favorite nutrient dense foods. It’s a seasonal autumn dish, perfect for right now. Round out the meal with a coconut pumpkin muffin and a glass of cold, raw milk.

Turkey Cutlets on Kale with Mushroom Sauce

6 tenderized turkey breast cutlets
1/4 cup sprouted wheat flour
1 bunch of kale, stemmed and chopped
2 cups homemade chicken stock, divided
1 pound mixed mushrooms, chopped
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms
3 tablespoons pasture butter, divided
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
sea salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, bring 1 cup chicken stock to boil. Pour half a cup of hot stock into a bowl and add dried mushrooms. Add chopped kale into remaining stock in the pot, set on medium low and cover. Give the kale a stir when you flip the turkey cutlets later.

Heat 1 tablespoon pasture butter in skillet. Add chopped onion and mixed mushrooms. Squeeze porcini mushrooms dry (reserve soaking water) and chop, adding to skillet. Stir around over medium high heat until mushrooms give off their liquid and onion begins to brown. Remove onion mixture from skillet.

Melt 1 tablespoon pasture butter in skillet. Dredge turkey cutlets in sprouted wheat flour and add to skillet. Brown on one side over medium heat, then flip over and cover the pan to brown the second side. The cutlets will be done in about 5 to 7 minutes total cooking time. Remove cutlets to a plate and keep warm.

Deglaze the skillet with remaining cup of chicken broth and mushroom soaking liquid. Scrape up all the good bits off the bottom of the skillet and allow liquid to reduce by half. Add mushroom mixture back into sauce, melt remaining 1 tablespoon pasture butter into sauce. Serve cutlets over a bed of kale, and topped with mushroom sauce. Serves 6

If you don’t have access to pastured turkey breast cutlets, you could use a couple chicken breasts that you’ve pounded thin. I used curly kale, but any variety would work well. The mushroom sauce mixes with the kale so deliciously! I had this dish on the table in less than 30 minutes.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

A view of the carrots

Spring has its bountiful early greens, summer its fast growth and ripe, red tomatoes, but the autumn garden has joys to share as well.

The lack of hungry flea beetles is the first joy I notice right away. The hungry critters that were munching my plants right down to the ground in July have all gone, lulled to sleep by the first frost. I can work in the garden in mid-afternoon without breaking a sweat, and what a joy that is! Tasting the intense sweetness that a frosty morning has brought to the stevia leaves is a pleasant surprise, as are the gentle rains this time of year brings. Most mornings the dew is so heavy that I don’t water but once a week. Most of the weeds have died out, so weeding is a quick job. And once established, the carrots, lettuce, mustard, spinach and kale grow so quickly it can be a challenge to keep them from taking over the backyard.

So, if you think the gardening season ends when the last tomato is picked, I want to encourage you to try growing some of your own autumn foods next year.

And to entice you to use what’s already in the garden or at the market, here’s an unusual recipe based on the premise that foods that grow together belong together! People don’t usually eat the greens of carrots, but they are edible and have the same zingy bitterness that dandelion has. If you like dandelion in your salad, give carrot tops a try as well. And if you find your diet deficient in potassium or vitamin C, don’t toss the carrot tops as they are rich in both as well as a host of other nutrients.

Eat Your Carrot Greens Salad

Serves 2 to 4, depending on how large the carrots have grown
3 carrots with their leaves
a stem or two of fresh mint leaves
1/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons olive oil
the juice of 1/2 lemon, freshly squeezed

Scrub the carrots clean and rinse the greens. Chop the carrots in very thin rounds and place in a bowl. Chop the carrot leaves finely, like you would parsley, removing any hard stems. Add to the bowl with the carrots, and mix in the raisins and chopped mint leaves. Season to taste with lemon juice, olive oil and salt.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by the inimitable Food Renegade.

After my success with ground goat (see How to Cook a Greek Goat and Super Bowl Sunday Food) I decided to try some cubed goat when the lamb I had planned wasn’t available. It was really delicious! It wasn’t quite as strongly flavored as lamb, so it really allowed the other flavors in the dish to shine through. This recipe started out as a Rachael Ray 30 minute meal, and I adjusted it to our tastes and what was available in season.

Mediterranean Goat Kebabs on Fried Potatoes

4 tablespoons coconut oil
1 large baking potato
Sea salt and black pepper
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme, stripped from stems
1 large fennel bulb, quartered, cored and thinly sliced (save a few leafy fronds)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
Pinch red pepper flakes
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 pounds goat cubes (lamb works as well)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
10 kalamata olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
10 fresh mint leaves, chopped
3/4 cup (about 15 leaves) fresh basil, chopped

Preheat the broiler with the rack about 6 inches from the heat source. Preheat a large skillet to medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons coconut oil. Quarter the potato lengthwise then slice thinly, adding to skillet as you chop. Season the potatoes with salt, pepper and thyme. Don’t shake or flip the potatoes until they get brown on the first side. Then flip and continue to cook for about 10 minutes total.

While the potatoes are cooking, warm a second skillet over medium high heat with the remaining coconut oil. Add the sliced fennel, onions, garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook 4 to 5 minutes, until tender. Add the chicken stock and bring up to a bubble, then simmer a couple minutes until the liquid has reduced to about 1/2 cup.

Make sure none of the kebabs are larger than bite size, then put them on a broiler pan. Broil for 4 to 5 minutes until medium rare. Add the vinegar and olives to the fennel skillet and stir around to combine. Reduce heat to low. When the kebabs come out of the broiler, add the mint and basil to the fennel, add the potatoes and toss it all around. Serve the kebabs on top of the potato mixture and garnish with the reserved chopped fennel fronds. Serves 4.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade.

These super simple (and inexpensive!) cookies are bursting with peanut flavor, easy enough for a kid to make, not altogether unhealthy, and you probably have all the required ingredients for them in your kitchen right now! Added bonus: if you have gluten-free peanut butter, the cookies will also be gluten-free. So, next time you are looking for a sweet treat, don’t hit the Little Debbies aisle, just whip up a batch of these!

Three Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Warm the peanut butter in a small saucepan over low heat until it is very soft. Add sugar and mix well. Add egg and mix until smooth. Cool in the refrigerator until the mixture firms up. Roll into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes about 20 cookies.

Notes:
Yes, this is an old recipe, hence the “sugar.” Honey and maple syrup don’t work quite as well as rapadura or coconut sugar in this recipe, and 1 cup makes for very sweet cookies. If you have already weaned your family from sugar, a half cup might be enough. Creamy peanut butter works better than crunchy, and the very BEST cookies come from the peanut butter that is only peanuts and salt.

Please come back every Monday in June for the Real Food Emergency Preparedness blog carnival! There’ll be tips, suggestions, questions, answers and a very cool prize for one lucky entrant! Hope to see you all here starting June 6.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade.

I have a friend who has a regular Friday night homemade pizza night. I’ve never gotten the hang of rolling pins, so I don’t make much pizza. And until I made sourdough pizza, I found the rubbery crust very hard to handle and overall not worth the effort.

But in Gnowfglins’ Sourdough Course, I learned how to make pizza crust that was sturdy enough to hold toppings, soft enough to chew and soured for good digestion! It’s a pizza trifecta! My grass farmer introduced their Canadian bacon last week and I just knew I had to try homemade sourdough Hawaiian pizza!

Sourdough Hawaiian Pizza

1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (plus more)
Toppings: tomato sauce, herbs, mozzarella cheese, pineapple, Canadian bacon or whatever you desire!

Stir together starter and water in a medium sized glass bowl. Add sea salt and olive oil and stir to mix. Pour in 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour and mix. Continue adding flour until the dough just cleans the sides of the bowl. I used about 3 cups total. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead for just a few minutes. Rub the dough ball with oil and allow to sit covered at room temperature for 8 hours or more.

Either roll the dough ball for a large pizza or pinch off 1/4 of the dough and roll for individual sized pizzas. You can roll it right onto parchment paper to make it easy to put on a cookie sheet. Top with desired toppings and bake 5-10 minutes at 450°. I double this recipe to make 8 personal pizzas about six inches in diameter for my clan.

Be sure to come back on May 16 for an announcement that’s sure to get you thinking!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Killing by fast food, a photo by Nomadize on Flickr.

Wordless Wednesday? I don’t take pretty pictures and I’m way too wordy. Meatless Monday? Not a chance. But No Fast Food Friday? Now there’s a campaign I can get behind!

Back on March 25, Rob Smart (aka Jambutter) tweeted that he’d like to see #nofastfoodfriday take off. And it has!

I totally understand the end-of-the-week crash that hits around 4pm on Friday. October through April, my answer is Clean out the Refrigerator Dinner (CORD). Saturday mornings during those months I go to the farmers market to stock up for the week once again. But by Friday night, the kitchen is looking pretty stark. CORD allows us to enjoy the leftovers one more time, keeps us from wasting food, and (best of all) gives Mama a night off in the kitchen while everyone heats up their own “best of the week” plates!

For those who are observing fish on Friday this time of year, you already have a fast option. I can’t believe how fast a meal of salmon is to cook. It’s so fast, in fact, I usually have to have the side dishes almost completely done before I start the salmon!

Friday would be a good night for a homemade pizza dinner. With a little night before and Friday morning planning, everyone can make their own personal sized pizza in just a few minutes. It’s also a great night for the kids to cook. With a little supervision, they can make spaghetti, sandwiches or even a big chef’s salad and let you put up your feet.

Here are some recipes from my blog that go together very quickly:

Riffin’ on Bruschetta

Peachy Chicken Salad

Happy Family Chicken Breasts

Greek Goatburgers

Sunday Lamb Chops

Early Spring Salad

What are your favorite quick dinners? Come play with us on Twitter this Friday and share your strategies for No Fast Food Friday! Be sure to use the hashtag #nofastfoodfriday so we all see your suggestions!

This post is part of Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.

I am, at several points of any day, lazy, busy and distracted.

I’ve been meaning to try making ketchup, but my family has a favorite brand and doesn’t like me messing with it. So, even if I went to the trouble to make it, they probably wouldn’t eat it. Eating food that has been cultured is very beneficial to health, though, so when I saw this fermented salsa idea on the Cheeseslave blog, I kind of ran with it.

You can add probiotics to foods you eat everyday without having to think about it. Your kids won’t have to develop a taste for sauerkraut, your husband won’t have to wrinkle his nose and suffer through kombucha, you won’t get a case of newbie panic or have to learn difficult new cooking methods to get started. Ready?

Go to your refrigerator. Got ketchup? Mustard? Salsa, maybe, or guacamole? Ranch dressing? Barbeque sauce? Pick one that you’ll be using in a meal about two or three days from now. Pour it out into a bowl and put the empty bottle back in the fridge. Add a tablespoon of whey for each cup of condiment and stir. Cover with plastic wrap (or a towel secured with a plate for my plastic-free friends.) Leave on the counter at room temperature for 24 hours. Scoop the condiment back into the jar or bottle and put back in the fridge. Done.

If you have some pickles in your fridge, you can pour out the vinegar/sugar solution they are sitting in and add water and whey to cover them. Dilute to a tablespoon of whey per cup of water and leave them out for 24 hours as well. The flavor won’t leech out, but you’ll end up with a probiotic pickle!

I’ve really gone bananas with this method and have cultured everything I can find in my fridge! There is no difference in flavor, but a huge difference in the healthfulness of my condiments. While the sauce is fermenting, good bacteria are growing, eating excess sugar and leaving behind a bounty of probiotics to feed your intestinal tract. Vitamins C and K are being created and made easily assimilated.

Other than a slight reduction in sugar content, there’s not really any point in culturing things like spaghetti sauce that will be heated before eating as heating kills the good bacteria.

Where to get whey? The #1 gold standard whey comes from raw milk yogurt, hung in a cheesecloth bag overnight over a bowl. The whey collects in the bowl while the yogurt becomes thick like cream cheese. We call the solids yo-cheese. Here’s a post I did with a yo-cheese recipe and use. Raw milk yogurt is very easy to make, some types of cultures don’t even need the milk to be heated first! Here’s a great source of information and cultures. (I don’t get any remuneration for the link, it’s just a source I trust.)

The second best source of milk is from raw milk, allowed to stand for a couple days at room temperature until it separates. The “curds” are the milk solids and the nearly clear “whey” is the liquid that drains from them.

If you don’t make your own yogurt or have access to raw milk, a good enough whey can be made from storebought plain organic yogurt. Check the ingredients carefully and make sure there are no colors, flavors or other things listed. You just want organic milk and cultures. Then, make yo-cheese and use the whey for culturing.

After the whey has been separated, it keeps in the refrigerator for about a month. If I haven’t used it all by then, I’ll freeze it in ice cube trays and store it, covered, in the freezer. The healthy bacteria will survive freezing just fine.

Enjoy!

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.

There’s a cold bug making its way through the family. Well, some of the family. Those of us who have been taking our cod liver oil and elderberry syrup daily are not experiencing any symptoms at all. Ah, but those who balk have got it good. This year’s bug starts with a dry cough and a whopper of a headache just before the nasal drainage sets in for days and days.

There are some good food remedies for a cold in this recipe. Garlic and onion strengthen the system and can help your body keep a virus from developing into secondary infections. Strong spice like cumin can help clear the sinuses. Homemade bone broth, rich in flavor and nutrition provide a sickly body the strength it needs to heal. And lard is very high in vitamin D, which both helps the body heal and avoid viruses.

I’m not a fanatic about the whole “Meatless Monday” movement. But I do like to make a meatless dinner once a week. It keeps the budget on an even keel. Sickies in the house like meatless meals as well, for they don’t tax the digestion as much as rich meats do.

I made this Congri, a Cuban Black Beans and Rice meal, this week. I made it strong on purpose. You might want to take the spices a little easier, tasting as you go. A few notes after the recipe on some variations.

Congri (Cuban Black Beans and Rice)

2 cups cooked black beans
2 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup homemade chicken stock
2 teaspoons oregano
2 tablespoons cumin
sea salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons lard
1 large onion
1 cup chopped frozen bell pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced finely

Warm the beans and rice in chicken stock and spices over low heat. While it heats, separately melt the lard in a medium frying pan. Add the chopped onion and allow to soften, about 10 minutes. Add the bell pepper and garlic when the onion is nearly done and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the cooked onion mixture to the beans and rice and serve.

If you have days to plan this meal, your healthiest option is to sprout the beans and germinate the rice before cooking both in stock. If you have only hours, cooking the beans and rice in stock from dried works fine. If you have leftover rice in the fridge or freezer and feel a bug coming on, you can still make this with canned beans, but please rinse the beans thoroughly first.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop. No balker, she!