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I’m plugging right along on the Real Food Challenge! This week focused on fermented foods, and the proper preparation of nuts, seeds and legumes.
Day #15: What’s a SCOBY? After several months making kombucha, I’ve more or less abandoned it. I am the only one drinking it, so I’m focusing now on water and milk kefir instead. Almost everyone will drink water kefir double-brewed into something resembling grape soda, and if I want a special treat, I’ll make some coconut kefir with coconut water. I was very relieved when I listened to Cheeseslave’s podcast with Julie Feickert at Cultures for Health. I didn’t know if I could use raw milk to make kefir, or if it needed to be heated first. But, she reassured me that I don’t need to heat my milk to kefir-ize it! YAY!
Day #16: Get Cultured (Veggies) We are still working on training our palates for cultured veggies. Right now I have pickled red peppers, fermented turnips and rutabagas and sauerkraut in the fridge. I’m so glad that all I need is a forkful for the beneficial bacteria to get into my diet! We’re still working on the kids. Usually the conversation goes like this:
“What’s for dinner, Mom?”
“Something from a jar.” (That’s what we call our ferments)
“What ELSE?”
“AFTER something in a jar? We have meatloaf, mashed potatoes and salad.”
I’m trying to encourage them to remember the ferments once a day, but sometimes even I forget! I’ll know I’ve reached my goal when the kids remind me that there’s nothing fermented on the dinner table!
Day #17: Yogurt and Cultured Dairy I love mesophilic yogurt. Between heating the milk and keeping the culture at a certain temperature, thermophilic yogurt can be a real pain. But adding the culture to the milk then setting it on the counter? That I can do.
Day #18: Cheesemaking for Everyone I like substituting yogurt cheese for cream cheese. It has a good consistency and flavor. When cucumbers are in season, one of our favorite ways to use yogurt cheese is filled between rings of cucumber! Yum!
Day #19: Nuts & Seeds We use nuts and seeds very sparingly here. I do soak and dehydrate them because even though the jury is still out on the phytic acid debate, we have a history of the dental problems that Rami Nagel says can be worsened by phytic acid intake. It’s just not a big deal for us to soak or sprout anyway, so I usually do.
Day #20: Preparing Beans & Legumes I almost always sprout beans and legumes. I find that sprouting them makes them far, far less “gassy.” The only reason I wouldn’t sprout them, but only add an acid when soaking, would be if I didn’t plan right and I didn’t have the lead time to sprout them. But I’m definitely getting better about that!
Come check on all the participants’ progress and see what’s shaking next on the Real Food Challenge over at Nourished Kitchen!
Stanley Tucci by califrayray, on Flickr
If I were to make a movie, there are certain actors that would be my first choice. Stanley Tucci is one of them. When I think about his ability to disappear into a role and make it his own, I’m amazed. I remember seeing him first in “thirtysomething,” a TV show I watched every week. But it was his portrayal of Lucky Luciano in “Billy Bathgate” that really got my attention. I saw him again and again in small roles in “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” “It Could Happen to You,” and “The Pelican Brief.” His role in “Big Night” next to Tony Shaloub was painfully sweet, and his slick but evil “trust me” character in the television series “Murder One” was very complex.
I could go on for pages, but I’ll spare you and fast-forward to “Julie and Julia” in which he plays the patient, loving, silently-strong husband of Meryl Streep’s Julia Child. He is earning critical acclaim for this role, and not only on the coattails of Ms. Streep and Amy Adams.
In a recent interview with Brad Balfour at the Huffington Post, the following exchange takes place:
Q: What would you have asked the people you played in this film if you had the chance?
ST: I’d like to ask them how they lived so long eating what they ate. I’m convinced that they both had two livers. I’d just be curious.
I had to laugh when I read his response because it is a common response to the real food diet espoused by the dietary guidelines of the Weston A. Price foundation. Many people are shocked by the amounts of saturated fat, cholesterol and dairy in the guidelines, but don’t read on to the details of the recommendations.
It’s saturated fat from grassfed herbivores, not herbivores fed inappropriate diets and held in captivity with no light or fresh air. It’s not just cholesterol for the sake of cholesterol, it’s eggs from pastured chickens on grass, synthesizing vitamin D in their own bodies and passing it down to their progeny without the need for prophylactic antibiotics. It’s not just dairy, it’s raw milk, unpasteurized, fresh, from trusted sources who know what they are doing.
Take a copy of Nourishing Traditions to a mega-grocery-store and purchase eggs to consume raw, dead milk from which to ferment kefir, ultrapasteurized cream to make creme fraiche, and antibiotic-laden meat to consume regularly and occasionally raw, and you have a nutritional and culinary recipe for disaster. Absolutely, eating eggs is important, and if pastured isn’t available, a grocery store egg is better than none, but there is no way I’d recommend anyone eat one raw!
To me, the dietary guidelines of WAPF require careful consideration, thought and planning and not a laissez-faire attitude toward food. The good news is, once you’ve acquired the knowledge and made the leap from CAFO to grassfed, ultrapasteurized to raw, processed to fresh, the learning curve smooths out considerably.
Mr. Tucci, you don’t need two livers to eat the traditional diet of your forebears. You don’t even need an extra trip to the gym. You’re already a food-lover, would you be interested in a role as an advocate promoting real food? Have your people call my people. Let’s do lunch.
This post is part of Fight Back Fridays, hosted by Food Renegade.
I’ve been making the Winter Root Soup recipe from Nourishing Traditions a couple times a month since the winter root vegetables became available at the Farmer’s Market. Hubby wasn’t thrilled, so I’ve been tweaking the recipe. I haven’t been able to get the flavor right, though. So today I tossed out the recipe and started from scratch.
First, I used roasted veggies that I had cooked last time I made a roast chicken. (I try to combine oven uses, and fill the oven to make use of the heat, rather than heating it up twice or three times.) Roasting the veggies instead of boiling them intensified and sweetened them. I used a different set of veggies, different seasonings, different just about everything! Hubby gave it a thumbs up, even though he does not like some of the ingredients on their own. Tip: if someone in your family is anti-beet, try using a golden beet. The tell-tale deep red won’t be there to clue anyone in to the sweet, mellow flavor they can’t quite put their finger on!
Roasted Winter Root Soup
5 large roasted organic carrots
2 roasted organic potatoes (I used small russets)
4 roasted golden beets
1 quart homemade chicken stock
1 orange
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon black walnut oil (optional)
fish sauce
Parmesan cheese
Puree the roasted vegetables and stock in a blender or with an immersion blender, warm gently in pot and thin with water if desired. Grate a tablespoon of orange peel into soup. Add vinegar and oil and continue heating until hot. Remove from heat and let cool a few minutes, then add the juice of the orange. Add a dash of fish sauce to each serving (it takes the place of salt and doesn’t taste fishy at all) and top with a grating of Parmesan cheese. Makes about two quarts of soup.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted this week by Cheeseslave.
If you’re ever stuck in our local airport and can’t get home, I’ll take you to a local health-food spot known worldwide! To hear the name of this amazing restaurant, and see a video about my wonderful decline in joint pain, please come to the Natural Cures Blog Carnival over at Hartkeisonline.
Ya’ll come!
Caviar, lemon, creme fraiche - Smoked salmon entree - Guillaume at Bennelong - by Julia by avlxyz, on Flickr
Even though we had started our Real Food journey last year at this time, this was our first real food Super Bowl. Last year we still “splurged” on snacks and got all the things we normally would for this special event. Chips, dip, candy, all the worst processed food has to offer.
This year I wanted to still have fun food, but I didn’t want to stray quite as far nutritionally. I picked up some exotic Terra chips and some Flat Earth cheddar chips, still chips but a half step up the nutritional ladder. Maybe not even that with the canola and soy, but still I felt better about getting them. Both bags had hardly been touched when I put them away. Instead, most everyone chose carrot and celery sticks for crunch.
I was separating a gallon of milk for curds and whey earlier this week and let it sit too long before I strained the cream. I was heartbroken. “What am I going to do with soured cream? I don’t know what to do with…wait. Soured? Like sour cream??” Hello! Although it was more sour and not thick like the locust bean gum-added version at the store, once I added some herbs and made a ranch dip for the veggies it was yummy.
We had a contraband box of crackers I was supposed to store with the emergency food in the garage (but never moved.) I put that out with some cream cheese, smoked salmon and caviar. The kids absolutely demolished the crackers. Rose, my salt fiend, loved the caviar and John, my pickiest eater, ate most of the smoked salmon. Huh.
For the main course, I made a huge pot of chili using the Red Meat Chile recipe from Nourishing Traditions. I used two quarts of sprouted, cooked kidney beans, but used a pound of ground goat and a pound of ground pork for the meat instead of beef. The goat tasted much like lamb. Hubby said it was the best chili I’ve made for a long time. I guess it must have been, because the pint that was leftover was eaten by someone for breakfast before the sun was up. I can’t believe there are no leftovers of that huge pot!
I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’ve been craving weird foods (read: nutrient dense) lately. Just last week at the store I picked up smoked salmon, a tiny jar of inexpensive caviar, some oysters, a tin of anchovies and ordered a beef liver from my farmer. I also have a bit of mystery meat (mysterious only to my family until they eat and enjoy it, then I might share it’s source) scheduled for later this week. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but those foods sound really good right now.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
Did you ever think a video game would inspire a local, nourishing mentality? I love to play on our family’s Wii. I have a couple games I enjoy, although time is usually too tight to play for long. One game I am particularly fond of is Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. It’s the ten-year-anniversary game in a series of farming and ranching simulation games. Now, I don’t like all the games in the series, but this one is near and dear to my heart.
With my physical challenges, I have resigned myself to the idea that I’ll probably never be a farmer. Oh, but I would love to grow enough plants to provide food for our family. Of course, we’d need a cow for some good raw milk. And a chicken or two, to clean up after the cows (an idea I got from The Omnivore’s Dilemma in a section on Polyface Farms.) And if I had a sheep to shear for yarn, I could make sweaters…
Oh yes, back to the game. Sorry, I love dreaming like that. Anyway, in the game, your character is a young woman (or young man) getting started on their own farm. The work is hard and you run out of energy quickly at first. Weeds must be cleared, rocks broken, trees chopped down, fields cultivated, planted and watered and eventually you get a tiny little harvest. Nothing is free. You have to save up for a pot and a skillet to put in your house, seeds to plant and animals. But the area is blessed with forageable herbs both for cooking and dyeing thread and yarn, a river and ocean well stocked with fish yours for the catching, and trees that will drop fruit from time to time. Food just doesn’t get more local than that.
That's a lot of tomatoes!
The “recipes” in the game use your harvested crops and foraged food to create dishes to restore your energy (and woo a mate, if you seek one.) The recipes all use whole, raw dairy in the forms of milk, butter and cheese; fish and shellfish and fresh fruits and vegetables. There are a few grains: breadfruit grown in spring becomes flour, rice and buckwheat for noodles. If you want something sweet, you’d better be sure you have flowers planted in your field to bring the bees that will occasionally leave you a pot of honey. There is no store from which to buy processed foods, although you can purchase a cooked fish from the tackle store, or a bit of stew at the hotel. You can purchase medicine at the doctor’s office, but it’s made with (can you guess?) raw milk, foraged herbs and honey.
The kitchen item I didn’t understand until just recently was the “aging pot.” Foods would go in and come out…different. For example, an egg, turnip or eggplant would go in raw and come out pickled! Rice, buckwheat or a blueberry would go in and come out as a cocktail. Until I read Nourishing Traditions, I was truly mystified. Now I understand: this aging pot is where you put foods to ferment! There are some silly elements like “makers” where you drop the milk into the machine and cheese or butter magically pops out, but it’s nice to see real, whole raw milk somewhere other than my own fridge.
When my daughters play this game, it opens a door for us to discuss food origins, natural preparation methods and ideas for our own meals! It was nice to point to the Halibut Meuniere that Christy wasn’t particularly interested in eating and remind her that’s a dish her Harvest Moon character eats all the time!
I guess you’ll find out sooner or later. I’m one of those strange right-brain-heavy listmaker types. Not one creative bone in my body. I guess instead of the poor, undeveloped genes for creativity copying themselves for my children, they just jumped ship, because my children are writers, musicians and artists all.
It’s not a bad life, though, the ultra-examined pragmatist’s. I have an absurd illusion of control despite all the curveballs parenthood brings. I have a security blanket in my computer and iCal. Even if my computer crashes (perish the thought) I can carry on with a piece of paper and a ruler. I thought I would keel over dead when my Palm Pilot crashed and finances didn’t permit its resurrection. But, I just dragged out the old three-ring binder and life went on.
This at least partly explains my comfort with this new (old) foodstyle. Soak stuff overnight? Ferment something 3 days? Separate milk and cream at room temperature for 24 hours? No problem! If it can go on a calendar grid, I can get it done. I am really enjoying how quickly meals get prepared when I follow recipes from NT. Yeah, it takes a little planning, a little forethought and a trustworthy shopping list, but at mealtime, it’s just bing-bing-bing to the table. My legs aren’t happy with me when I stand for more than 30 minutes in one place, so these quickly made meals are a real blessing for me. Breaking the jobs down into ten-minute chunks to be accomplished when the body is cooperating is something I don’t find in a lot of cookbooks.
Today’s chunks: The chicken stock is done and ready to put away. I need to get the black beans soaking for Mexican night later this week. I want to make a few phone calls to find soup bones. Not one grocery store in our area carries soup bones anymore. There are some around the Fourth of July, I’m told, when the steaks are cut for barbeques. We even have a butcher nearby, and all his meat arrives boneless. Wow. I guess the job of butcher has changed significantly since I was a kid. I had an easier time finding raw milk than I’m having finding soup bones!
Perhaps it would be a good time to put down in writing what I hope to gain by adopting this foodstyle. My youngest daughter has multiple food allergies, including milk protein, almonds, rice, oats, soy, and some other item we can’t quite identify. Her allergies express themselves in the most vicious, angry eczema I’ve ever seen across her legs, stomach and especially neck. She also has several environmental allergies, mainly molds and mites, but nothing like my oldest girl who has violent skin reactions to the chemicals used in cleaning products. Hubby is overweight with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, rheumatoid arthritis and sinus problems, and allergies to mushrooms, beef and most notably, corn. I am also overweight but am blessed with low BP and cholesterol. I have osteoarthritis resulting from failed knee surgeries numbering in the double digits and rheumatoid arthritis which onset at the ripe old age of 8. My only allergies are to shellfish, although those are expressed by instant and life-threatening swelling of the face, tongue and throat. I have been experiencing acid reflux of constantly increasing frequency, duration and intensity and am probably borderline bipolar. Any improvement to these health conditions would be an amazing blessing, especially since we are without health insurance right now.
How I found the Nourishing Traditions cookbook was by way of another book I was reading called “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston A. Price. My youngest boy has “porous enamel” on his teeth and is plagued with multiple and constant cavities. I was reading an article that this Price guy found a nutritional basis (beyond brush, floss, fluoride and restricting sugar) to healthy teeth and that piqued my interest. After all, my son, before age 15, had more than 20 cavities and two root canals. I confess his nutrition is not what it should be, not by a long shot. He seems to have a problem tasting things, and seeks out familiar foods that are high in sugar and very low in nutrients. He can’t stand the sight of food in the morning and relies on the public school lunch program midday. That’s why it is so vitally important I feed him at least one meal of exceptional quality per day. I was doing okay, pushing meats, veggies and low-sugar foods, but became very excited at the prospect of foods that could help his body begin to repair itself.
So, there you have it. A beginning laundry list of why I seek to actively participate in improving my family’s health. The thought of my sweet hubby having a cardiac event (like his father did at his age) or me experiencing cancer (like my mother did at my age) or my children not becoming all it is possible for them to become is unacceptable to me.
I wanted a really yummy start for our first night at the table, so I made a big pot of Mushroom Soup. I served it with a loaf of freshly baked 12-grain bread. I used a mix from a local artisan bakery in the bread machine and focused my efforts on the soup. We had some local pasture butter (very expensive, but very delicious and healthful) for the bread, and passed some fruit-only preserves. I explained to the kids that the preserves were “dessert” for the night as we had gotten into the very bad habit of nightly dessert.
I started with Mushroom Soup from the Nourishing Traditions book (hereafter noted NT) and made a few changes as I went along. It made enough to serve us, with a quart left over. The family liked it, especially the adults. Hubby said it was delicious as long as you didn’t look at it. It was a little “grayer” than I’d like. Here is the recipe I ended up with.
Mushroom Soup
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 1/2 pounds fresh mushrooms, wiped
4 tablespoons coconut oil
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 cup Zinfandel wine
1 heel whole wheat bread, torn into pieces
sea salt and pepper
buttermilk
Melt the coconut oil in soup pot over medium low heat. Add onion, stir and cover. Wipe mushrooms with damp cloth, dry and quarter. In large skillet, melt 1 tablespoon coconut oil with 1 tablespoon evoo over medium heat. Add 1/4 of the quartered mushrooms, stirring and cooking until softened and fragrant. Remove with slotted spoon to paper-towel lined bowl. Repeat until all mushrooms are cooked. Add mushrooms, wine, bread and stock to soup pot, bring to a boil and skim of any flotsam with a spoon. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered 20 minutes. Pour into soup tureen and puree with handheld blender. Correct seasonings. Pass buttermilk at table for topping.
I checked out “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon last week at the library and read it cover-to-cover in two days. Contrary to most of the “diet” and cookbooks I’ve read in the last ten years, I could actually eat like that! My wonderful hubby gave me a copy for my birthday, which I’m sure my library appreciates nearly as much as I do! It’s my goal to write monthly menus, twice-weekly shopping lists and get this thing going.
But, I have to start slowly. My family is not used to eating this well. Although we have enjoyed good, home cooked meals, I have slipped into the laziness of allowing food processing plants to do most of the work for me. One of the things that excites me most about “Nourishing Traditions” is that the food, once early prep work is done days in advance, is quickly put together at mealtime.
So, I’m going to start with dinner, six nights a week, at the dining table. The basic plan is soup on Monday, fish on Tuesday, beef on Wednesday, meatless on Thursday, poultry on Friday, eating out on Saturday (a family tradition), and leftovers on Sunday.
