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 love a good cheddar potato soup in the winter. Just-right-thick and creamy, warm and filling, it’s a winter meal in itself. I used to make this recipe:

Cheddar Potato Soup

6 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup margarine
4 cups milk
2 tablespoons vegetarian “chicken” soup base
8 ounces Velveeta
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup milk

Boil potatoes and carrot in water for 15 minutes, drain. Saute celery and onion in margarine for about 10 minutes. Add 4 cups milk to drained potatoes, season to taste. Add onion and celery mixture to potato mixture and stir in soup base. Heat slowly and add cheese. Cook until cheese is melted, stirring constantly. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/2 cup milk and add to soup. Cook until thickened.

Ew. Yes, we actually ate that way. But I make it better better (yummier and more nutritious) now. I made little changes, like scrubbing instead of peeling the vegetables so as not to lose the nutrients just under the skin; medium changes like using REAL chicken stock and REAL cheese; and big changes like using real fat instead of plastic margarine. Sauteeing the veggies in bacon fat gives a nutritional boost and a huge difference in the flavor of the ending product. Here’s how I make my soup now:

Better Cheddar Potato Soup

6 organic potatoes, scrubbed and diced
3 organic carrots, scrubbed and diced
3 stalks organic celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/4 cup bacon fat or schmaltz
4 cups homemade chicken stock
8 ounces raw cheddar cheese, grated
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/2 cup milk
sea salt, pepper and smoked paprika to taste

Saute onion, celery and carrot in water for 5 minutes. Add stock and potatoes to pan, bring to a boil and skim any foam off the top. Cook about 20 minutes, testing potatoes for doneness occasionally. Add cheese, but don’t worry if it turns into a stringy mess as it melts, the next step will fix that. Dissolve arrowroot in 1/2 cup milk and add to soup. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Season with real sea salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Now, that’s good!

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

Last year, I made a fermented cranberry relish by lacto-fermenting cranberries in whey for a few days. But it was so very tart. Even adding honey at the end barely took the edge off. This year I wanted something fruitier and sweeter, but I sure didn’t want all the sugar.

This year I decided to combine fresh cranberries with another seasonal fruit for sweetness. Pears added just the right touch. I chopped four pears and added them to three cups of cranberries in a blender. But they wouldn’t blend!

Hm. What I needed is a little liquid to get this mixture moving. But what? There was time to add whey and ferment it a little, but I didn’t want the pears going alcoholic on me. I didn’t really want to add a fruit juice, which is just another form of concentrated sugar.

Water kefir! I had a batch ready on the counter. I strained off the grains and got another batch brewing and added a little of the finished kefir to the blender—just enough to get the blades moving.

When it was all blended up, I put it in a canning jar and set it on the counter, covered with a towel, to age overnight. In the morning, it was perfect! Not too sweet, not too liquid, and just the right tang.

The “good bugs” in the kefir will help us digest all that turkey (and cream cheese later) which is always a big help with a large meal!

That’s what’s twistin’ in my kitchen this Tuesday. Come join the carnival and tell me what’s twistin’ in yours! This post is also part of Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

I wanted to drop in to share this delicious recipe, though. In the photo you see some baked salmon (one of our non-local compromise foods), dragon’s tongue green beans, corn relish and homemade cheddar bay biscuits. Apparently (I haven’t been there in decades), Red Lobster offers these amazing morsels called Cheddar Bay Biscuits. A local radio personality offered lifelong loyalty to a staff member for bringing him some. Sounds pretty good! So, I started digging around on the web and the recipes I found all called for some food-impersonator called “Bisquik” (wha???) but seemed easy enough to adapt to real food. Warning: I didn’t soak the flour for these biscuits beforehand. I normally do soak grains, but this was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision. They were delicious and the highlight of the meal!

Whole Wheat Cheddar “Bay” Biscuits

2 tablespoons melted pasture butter
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour
1/2 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon crushed dried parsley
1 scant teaspoon sea salt
3 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons cold pasture butter
1 cup buttermilk

Add the minced garlic to the 2 tablespoons butter and melt on very low heat. Remain on heat until biscuits are complete. In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Add buttermilk and mix gently, just until the dough forms a ball. Drop by two-tablespoon measure onto lightly greased parchment paper (I use coconut oil for this) and bake 9 to 11 minutes at 450°. Brush with melted garlic butter immediately after removing from oven, serve hot. Makes 8 big biscuits.

Note on ingredients: Freshly ground flour is very light and fluffy. There is less flour in a cup of freshly ground than there is in a cup of flour that has been ground and stored. If you are using pre-ground flour, you will need to decrease the flour.

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

Just Cheese for Me

I got a call from a pizza place yesterday. $3.99 for a one-topping pizza. Wow! For only $4 I could eat:

Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, Riboflavin, Folic Acid) Water, Vegetable Oil (Soybean), Sugar, Salt, Yeast, Vital Wheat Gluten, Less than 1% Dough Conditioners [Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Whey, Enzyme (with Wheat Starch), Ascorbic Acid, L-cysteine, and Silicon Dioxide added as processing aid], Corn Meal (used in preparation).

And that’s just the crust! Ew, no thanks.

But still, pizza…yum. What about a personal pizza with a soaked crust? Everybody makes their own, gets just what they want and with a little front-end prep I get an afternoon away from the kitchen! Honestly, why a pizzaria charges so much is beyond me when it’s so easy to make fresh, whole wheat, real food pizza!

Soaked Crust Pizza

Be sure to start this 24 hours before you plan to use it

Dough
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup warm water (about baby bathwater temperature)
1 tablespoon organic dry yeast (I like Rize)
1/2 cup buttermilk (or other cultured milk)
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt

Proof the yeast by mixing together honey and water. Sprinkle yeast over the surface of the mixture and wait about 10 minutes. If the yeast mixture bubbles, it is active and ready for use. Add buttermilk, then mix in freshly ground flour a half cup at a time until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl. (You can use a bread machine or mixer for this step if you’d like.) Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a warm place overnight.

After rising, add the salt to the oil and allow it to dissolve a little before adding to the dough. Knead in thoroughly and divide into two large or eight small balls. Allow the balls to rise until they are doubled in bulk. (When you push your finger into the dough it doesn’t fill right back in.)

For mini pizzas, take a plate and coat the underside in olive oil. Press the dough onto the back of the plate until it’s about 1/4″ thick. (I hate rolling pins ever so much, but you may use a rolling pin instead if it works for you.) Brush the top of the crust with olive oil. This will be the bottom of the crust in the next step. Turn the crust over onto a cookie sheet that’s been sprinkled with cornmeal. Roll or fold over the edges if you desire.

Toppings

I use tomato paste that’s been thinned just a little with water or beef stock for sauce. Sometimes an unsweetened ketchup stands in. I don’t go to a lot of trouble with the sauce because the real star here is the cheese and toppings!

Top your pizzas with sauce and grated cheese and whatever toppings you like. Bake at 450° for about 15 minutes, but watch closely to avoid burning. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

Our favorite toppings include fresh pineapple, bell peppers, black olives, crumbled bacon and a blend of mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

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

I started with a Rachel Ray recipe and messed around with it until I got it tasting like something my family would eat. And did they ever! Even the salad was a hit, thanks to its dearth of greens, most likely. So, c’mon, jump in there and grab the goat by the horns!

Photo by Kate

Greek Goatburgers and Vegetable Salad
1 1/2 pounds pastured ground goat (lamb steps in nicely if you’re not ready for the goat plunge)
2 tablespoons organic Dijon mustard
2 organic garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
A handful of organic, fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1/2 pound feta cheese, half of it diced (raw milk feta if you can find it)
3 tablespoons coconut oil
2 organic vine-ripened tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup organic pitted kalamata olives, chopped
small handful of fresh organic mint leaves, chopped
1 15-ounce can organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or freshly cooked if not canned)
1 organic cucumber, seeded and chopped
1/2 tablespoon dried oregano
2 lemons
2 tablespoons organic olive oil
2 avocadoes, halved (I’m the only avocado eater here, so photo shows none)
pita breads

Warm the pita breads in a 300° oven wrapped in parchment. Rub a salad bowl with the open side of the halved garlic, then chop it. In a mixing bowl, combine the ground goat meat, mustard, chopped garlic, half the chopped parsley (toss the other half in your salad bowl) and a little salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands. Add the cubed feta cheese and fold the meat over the cheese gently a few times to incorporate it without breaking up the chunks too much. Form into four generous patties or six regular sized patties. Melt the coconut oil in skillet and fry patties for 4 minutes on each side. Remove the patties to a plate and put in the oven that you’ve now turned to “off.”

While the patties fry and rest, chop and combine the veggies in the salad bowl. Throw the tomatoes, olives, mint, chickpeas, cucumbers and oregano in with the parsley. Squeeze the juice of one of the lemons over, pour in the olive oil and give it a toss. Halve, pit and slice the avocadoes and sprinkle with the juice from the remaining lemon. Serve the avocadoes over the top of the salad and sprinkle with what’s left of the feta, crumbing it through your fingers. Set a burger patty next to the salad and pass the warmed pita breads for “scooping” up the salad and soaking up the delicious juices!

This post is part of Fight Back Friday, hosted by Food Renegade, that sweet lamb!

ICK01-at244by-Anna Sattler on Flickr

Stop making that face. Do you want your face to freeze like that?

No, I’m not talking to you, I’m quoting my mother’s response to my face every time she said liver was planned for dinner. Mom* made liver no one could love. First she fried the onions. Then the liver hit the pan and didn’t come out until it was black through and through, curled up like a dessicated jellyfish and about as tasty as shoe leather. Just the smell of it cooking was enough to send us on bended knee to beg Daddy for a special trip to McDonalds.

Now, you gotta give me credit: I’ve made and enjoyed raw meat, beet kvass, beef tongue, all manner of sprouted, soaked, fermented things with odd rubbery-mushroomy-scobys floating on top. I’ve even made pate with chicken liver that was scrumptious. But evil, maroon, stomach-churning beef liver? EEK!

But, still it’s a powerhouse of a food. Few food sources can compete with liver in the nutrient density arena. If I could only find a way to cook it…

When Kimberly of Hartkeisonline came for dinner, she told me about her mom’s liver recipe. It went something like this:

Fry up a package of bacon, remove from pan. Fry a sliced onion or two in the bacon grease, add chicken livers that have first been dredged in flour with salt and pepper added. Fry until brown and crispy on the outside, still pink on the inside. Remove liver and onions from pan. Add slices of fried pineapple to the pan and fry both sides until browned. Serve fried pineapple with the liver and onions and squeeze fresh lemon juice on top of the liver.

The idea of pineapple with liver intrigued me. I mean, sure, liver and onions is classic. And there are few in our family who can contain themselves when bacon is frying. But sweet and tart pineapple (with all that great bromelain for digestion) alongside? I made a few little adjustments to the recipe and came up with Our Liver Experiment:

3 slices grassfed beef liver
4 organic lemons
1 pound uncured pastured bacon
1 whole organic pineapple
2 organic sweet onions, sliced into rings
3 tablespoons sprouted wheat flour

Juice three and a half of the lemons and pour over the liver slices in a shallow dish. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Turn partway through the marinating process if the liquid doesn’t cover the slices.

Slice the bacon into 1-inch wide pieces and fry until crisp. Remove from the pan and pour off (and reserve) most of the fat.

Slice the pineapple into half-inch thick rings, removing rind and core, and saute in bacon fat in the same pan over medium heat until just browned on both sides. Remove from pan.

Add back half of the reserved bacon fat and toss in the onion rings. Saute the onions until just browned and remove from pan.

Dry off the liver slices and dredge them in the sprouted wheat flour. Add all the remaining bacon fat and cook the liver just until browned on both sides. Plate the liver, topped with onion, pineapple and bacon. Pass with big smiles, the remaining lemon half for squeezing a tad of juice over and “YUM!” noises.

How did we like it? Well those of us who love liver (me) thought it was fantastic and had two pieces! Those of us who enjoy strongly flavored foods (Rose) said it was not bad at all! Those of us whose palates are less refined (Blair, Kate and Christy) ate three bites each, the required minimum, and begged off gracefully. The boys? Hubby was out of town and John was at work. Little do they know I saved them some…

*Not MY mother. MY mother is a gourmet cook and would NEVER overcook liver.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays, hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop

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.

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.

The first part of the book covers the language of food, from aroma, mouth feel, taste and what they call the “X Factor”: what is going on in your other senses including memory, heart and spirit. Of course, we all have those foods that taste like home or vacation, and this is part of that equation.

I learned, for the first time, about balancing flavors. Of course I knew that some dishes are just too salty, but never knew that adding sourness would help bring that saltiness down. I’ve never learned why creamy guacamole is so good with crunchy chips, it just is. Now I know that it is because crunchy and creamy are complementary in the same way that in painting, placing complementary colors next to each other brightens both (think of a red apple on a green tree.)

The chefs interviewed for the book are unanimous in their insistence on seeking local, seasonal food for the best results. This, too, is something I’m growing into for the first time in my life. Of course, in a home kitchen, I don’t have access to a nearly unlimited variety of seasonings and oils to bring out this flavor or that, but having a reference to tell me that a seasoning I do have will accomplish a similar result to the one I don’t have is very valuable.

Reading through the affinities listings woke something up in me. As I read the list of foods that pair well with apples, for instance, I dreamed up combinations that would have never come to me otherwise. So, our breakfast custard this week will have a touch of apple cider, fresh apples and cheddar cheese instead of just apples in cream and egg. I know, it’s a common pairing and not anything earth-shattering, but for someone who has relied on written recipes for each and every meal for decades, imagining a food pairing well enough to taste it in my mind is revelatory.

The affinities listings in The Flavor Bible contain other information as well, like a listing of foods associated with a certain regional and international cuisines, seasons of the year, foods that are warming or cooling, etc. Some ingredients have menu items in which they are used from the interviewed chefs’ restaurants. It is from one of those that I put together tonight’s dinner: Braised Short Ribs on Mashed Potatoes with Green Beans. You will need to adjust to your size family and meat-eating preferences, of course. We don’t eat a lot of meat in one sitting, so one rib per person was enough for us.

Braised Short Ribs
8 short ribs
2 tablespoons tallow
12 ounces double chocolate stout beer
4 ounces chopped onion
2 ounces each chopped carrot and celery
2 tablespoons butter

Start by making the mirepoix: saute the chopped onion, carrots and celery in butter in oven-proof roasting pan. Remove from pan, add tallow and turn up heat. Sear ribs on all sides. Add beer and mirepoix back to pan, cover and cook in a slow oven (300°) for three and a half hours. You really want the meat falling off the bones.

While the meat was in the oven, I also baked some potatoes until they were soft. I added whole cream and butter, salt and white pepper to the potatoes and whipped them to a fare-thee-well. I used the potatoes as a “base” to hold a rib with a little of the braised veggies and juice on top. I tend to use olive oil only in salad dressings, but it was a strongly suggested pairing with green beans. So, when it came time to make the green beans, I steamed them until just tender, then sprinkled them with some roasted onion and drizzled olive oil over the top.

The depth of the flavors was a surprise to me. The potatoes were more potato-y than those I’ve made from boiled potatoes. The green beans were much more savory drizzled with olive oil and onion than tossed with butter, which makes them sweeter. The amazing thing was in the combining. The ribs alone were good, the potatoes were good, the beans were good. But piled on a fork together created something new and amazing, savory, rich and wonderful.

You’ll have to forgive me, not only am I only learning to cook, but learning to write about food as well! The Flavor Bible just moved to the top of my Christmas list. But until December 25, don’t bother looking for a copy in the Nashville Public Library system because I’ve renewed my loan!