Cheeseburger Soup

Mmmm… it’s funny how if you give a food a “junk food” name, the kiddos are so much more interested in it.

Try asking them, “Would you like some veggie, cheese and beef soup?”

Them, “Uh no.”

Or you can aks, “Would you like some Cheeseburger Soup?”

Them, enthusiastically, “Heck yeah!”

I know cheeseburgers normally do not contain celery and carrots, but I thought this was the perfect base to sneak in some veggie goodies.

Cheeseburger Soup

• 1 med. onion chopped
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 2 celery ribs, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 5 tbsp butter, divided
• 1 lb grassfed ground beef, browned
• 3 tbsp gluten free all-purpose flour
• 2 qts beef stock
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (sharp is the best)
• salt to taste

In a medium saucepan, melt 2 tbsp butter. Saute onions, celery, carrots and garlic until onions are soft. Set aside.

Melt remaining 3 tbsp of butter. When foamy, whisk in 3 tbsp GF flour. Cook flour over medium heat until bubbly and starting to brown. Slowly whisk in stock. Add veggies back in and simmer until carrots are very soft.

Blend soup with a handheld blender or in a regular blender.

Add cheese, stir until melted. Add beef.

A few drops of chili sauce tastes great in this. Top with popcorn for an extra treat.

Lacto…ferma…what???

Lacto-fermentation. It’s my new obsession. I love looking down the produce aisle and thinking, “What can I ferment today?” As I was picking up a bottle of apple cider vinegar (which has nothing to do with lacto-fermentation), I spied a jar of pickled cauliflower and thought, “Wow, I bet that will taste awesome!” So I picked up a couple heads of cauliflower, one to eat and one to ferment. Unlike pickling, lacto-fermenting actually makes veggies better for you by adding probiotics, they’re more easily digestible and actually increase the vitamin content. And they taste good to boot. Woohoo!

Ingredients

1 small head of cauliflower

herbs and spices to taste (I used garlic and jalapenos)

2 tbsp sea salt, divided

8 tbsp whey, divided

filtered water

2 quart sized mason jars

I cut the cauliflower into medium to smallish sized florets and even cut up the stem, removing any woody parts. Stuff as much as you can into 2 quart sized mason jars along with any pickling spices you prefer (parsley, peppercorns, garlic, coriander, dill) leaving about 1″ of space at the top. I also put in a few slices of peppers to add a little kick. Add 1 tbsp sea salt, 4 tbsp whey (you can easily get whey by dripping yogurt) in each jar and cover with filtered water. Cover tightly and place in a warm spot for about 4 days or up to a week.

Crack open the jar, it should fizzle and smell good. If it doesn’t smell good, don’t eat it, haha! The fizzle is the best part. Like a party in your mouth! Pictured next to the cauliflower is a jar of pea pods, green beans and a mix of green beans and red bell pepper.

These should keep in the fridge or cellar for a few months but I doubt they stay around that long. I almost ate a whole jar yesterday!

Chili Relleno with Shrimp and Green Rice

I’m feelin’ a little bit spicy tonight, woow!
One of the foods I desperately miss is Chili Relleno. It seems most restaurants like to batter fry these yummy peppers, bleh! I think they taste just as good if not better without the batter.
I’ll be serving this spicy treat to my sweetie tonight on top of some yummy Green Rice. The stuffing was so good, I had to keep myself from just eating it (luckily there was enough left over for me to have a pre-meal snack). This is also another great way to sneak in some veggies. While I’m sure the kiddos won’t eat the peppers, they’ll love the rice/shrimp mixture. Just don’t tell them they are eating spinach!


Chili Relleno

• 6 poblano peppers
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 4 tbsp butter
• 1/2 lb shrimp, shelled, deveined with tails removed
• 1 lime, zested and juiced
• 1 cup of green rice (see below)
• 1/2 tsp ground corriander
• 1/2 tsp chili powder (chipotle chili powder if you want an extra zing)
• 1 tsp oregano
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 4 oz Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
• 1/2 bunch of cilantro, stems removed and leaves chopped

Roast peppers in the oven on broil setting until skin blisters. You can cover the peppers with foil or seran wrap and then peel the skin off or just leave the skin on for a charred look. Slice the peppers down one side and scoop out the seeds. Arrange in a 13×9″ baking dish.

For the stuffing, in a skillet melt the butter. Add cumin seeds and toast for about 2 minutes. Add chopped onions and saute until translucent. Add the shrimp and cook through. Remove from heat and add lime juice, rice, corriander, oregano, lime zest, tomato and cilantro. Mix thoroughly.
Heat oven to 350F. Scoop mixture into peppers really stuffing them to overflowing. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes, until cheese is melted. Serve on top of green rice or skip the rice to make the meal GAPS legal.

Green Rice

• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups white rice
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• 1/2 lb spinach
• 4 green onions
• 1 lime, zested and juiced

Melt butter in medium saucepan. Add rice and stir, letting the rice brown just a little. Add stock and cook until water evaporates (around 12 minutes).
While rice is cooking, add cilantro, spinach, green onions, lime juice and zest to a food processor and process until smooth. Add a little stock if needed.
Stir green paste into rice during the last few minutes of cook time.

Ranch Dressing

You ask, “Why make Ranch dressing when I can just buy a bottle at the store?”
Have you ever read the ingredients label on Ranch dressing. Eek! Nasty and no thank you.

My childhood favorite dipping sauce, Hidden Valley Ranch contains the following:

Soybean Oil, Water, Egg Yolk, Sugar, Salt, Cultured Nonfat Buttermilk, Natural Flavors (Soy), Spices. Less than 1% of Dried Garlic, Dried Onion, Vinegar, Phosphoric Acid, Xanthan Gum, Modified Food Starch, Monosodium Glutamate, Artificial Flavors, Disodium Phosphate, Sorbic Acid and Calcium Disodium EDTA as Preservatives, Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate.

Yuck.

Honestly, making your own is really not that hard. The hardest part is cleaning the blender/food processor when your done. But homemade Ranch dressing tastes so good, it’s worth it. Psst, it’s cheaper too!
ETA:  To make clean up a breeze, simply use a wide mouth mason jar and an immersion blender.

You’ll need the following:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 kefir, piima, buttermilk, yogurt or sour cream (sour cream or yogurt makes a great thick dipping sauce) most any cultured milk product will do
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1 small shallot, chopped
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tbsp dill, fresh
• 1 tbsp parsley, fresh
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Place everything in the blender/food processor except the olive oil. Whirl around until very well blended. While the blender is still on, slowly drizzle the olive oil in a thin stream. The oil will emulsify it to a yummy creation.

Another ETA: I made this recently and added a roasted red pepper.  Delicious!  It gave the dressing a nice red tinge.  Or add 1-2 tsp chipotle chili powder for a Southwestern kick.

Toscana Soup and Sausage in a Pinch

The smells coming from the kitchen are almost too much to take.

• 1 lb bulk pork sausage (pasture raised if you can get it, otherwise make your own sausage. Recipe below.)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 medium onion, sliced thin
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 qts chicken stock
• 3-4 medium potatoes, cubed into 1/2″ bites
• 1 bunch kale, stems removed and chopped roughly
• 1/2 fresh cream or sour cream

In a large saucepan/small stockpot, melt butter and brown sausage. Add onions and garlic and saute until soft.
Add stock and potatoes. Simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 mins. Add kale and cream and heat through.

Sausage in a Pinch (Spicy Italian)
Sausage isn’t something I normally keep on hand and I haven’t found any pasture raised sausage here so I make this instead.

• 1 lbs ground meat (I’ve used turkey and beef)
• 1/4 cup red wine (use broth if you don’t want to use alcohol)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 clove, minced
• 1 tsp ground pepper (less if you want less spice)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne (less if you want less spice)
• 1 tbsp fennel
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika

Either mix all the spices into the meat in a bowl or you can mix it as you are sauteing the meat.

Walnut Pesto Sauce

Now that I’ve made pesto sauce, I’m asking myself, “Why have I not made this before?” Grocery shopping this week, there was a tub of basil available (not a normal thing to see here) so I thought I’d give it a shot. I will never buy pesto sauce again. It’s so simple to make as long as you have the right ingredients. Next I’ll try Parsley Pesto Sauce since parsley is always available here.

Walnut Pesto Sauce
1/2 walnuts
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
2 cups fresh basil
1 cup flat leave parsley
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Put everything except the oil and the cheese in a food processor or blender and whirl away until chopped up well. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Add cheese a pulse quickly to just mix it in.
Yields enough for about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs of pasta.

Post Run Egg Nog

Mmm, egg nog, mmm…
Did you know egg nog can actually be good for you? Not the sugar/artificial everything laden stuff in the supermarket but the yummy homemade goodness using fresh from the farm ingredients. The only thing I bought from the store on the ingredients list are the spices. Even the the vanilla extract is homemade!
Full of good proteins, good fats and good simple sugars, this is my new post-workout food of choice. It’s also full of raw milk and eggs so according to the FDA, I’ll die from this or at least get really sick. It’s a wonder mankind has survived all these years without their wise advice *hint of sarcasm*. I won’t go into the safety of raw milk and eggs, you can find it yourself easy enough. Just make sure you get your milk and eggs from a good farm. Raw milk from your local commercial dairy actually might kill you. There is a BIG difference between commercial dairies and organic/raw dairies. Big!
ETA: If you want to read a good articles about the safety of raw milk, here is one http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/03/23/got_raw_milk/?page=full

Good-for-you Egg Nog

• 1 cup fresh raw milk (yogurt or kefir taste yummy too and make it GAPS legal)
• 2 fresh eggs from pasture fed chickens (high in vitamin D and omega 3’s)
• 1/2 tsp honey
• dash of cinnamon and nutmeg
• few drops of vanilla extract

Whirl everything together in a blender (I use my submersion blender) and drink up!
*From Ramiel Nagel’s book “Cure Tooth Decay.”

Pickled Pea Pods

Now these are good! I don’t know what gave me the idea to try lacto-fermenting a pea pod, but I’m glad I did. Because of this I have 2 good sized garden beds devoted solely to peas. I can’t wait until I can start fermenting my own home grown peas!

What is lacto-fermenting and why do it? Check it out here: http://nourishedkitchen.com/fermented-food-lactic-acid-fermentation/
My kids, who have a deep aversion to vegetables, devour these!
Utensils: wide-mouth mason jar, shot glass, small plate or lid that will fit inside the mason jar.

• 1 lb snow pea pods
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
• a sprig of fresh dill
• crushed red pepper (optional, adjust amount to your liking)
• 1 tbsp sea salt (non-iodized)
• 1/4 cup fresh whey (you can get this by dripping yogurt)

Fill mason jar with pea pods, garlic, dill and peppers (evenly distributing the herbs and spices). Sprinkle salt and whey over the pods and fill with filtered water to the top of the pea pods making sure everything is under water, no less than 2″ to the top of the jar. Cover and give the jar and good shake to dissolve the salt. Open up and put the small plate on top of the peas and the shot glass on top of the plate. Cover loosely. The shot glass and plate will help keep the pea pods submerged. The fermentation process will inflate the pea pods (making them fun to bite into!). Another option is to fill a glass or jar that will fit inside the mason jar with water to weigh the plate down.
My 12 month old loves these!

Caesar Dressing

I love Caesar Salad and the dressing is what makes it.

So if you want to make it at home, here is what you need:

Soybean Oil, Water, Parmesan and Romano Made From Cow’s Milk, Cheeses (Part-skim Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes), Vinegar, Egg Yolks, Sugar, Contains less than 2% of Salt, Sodium Lactate, Red Wine Vinegar, Dried Garlic, Spice, Phosphoric Acid, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Anchovies, Whey, Butter (Cream, Salt), Dried Onions, Molasses, Xanthan Gum, Corn Syrup, Modified Food Starch, Buttermilk, Sodium Phosphate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Defatted Soy Flour, Disodium Guanylate, Disodium Inosinate, Natural Flavor, Caramel Color, Vitamin E, Tamarind, Natamycin (Natural Preservative).

Mmmm! Sound tasty? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. I don’t even want to know what some of those ingredients are.

Here is how you can actually make Caesar Dressing at home. I know you hear me say this a lot but it is simple. I used my immersion blender right in the jar it is kept in for super duper easy clean up.
REAL FOOD ingredients:

Caesar Salad Dressing

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard (I made my own lacto-fermented mustard, extra mmm!)
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar (or apple cider)
• Juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 extra virgin olive oil
• 1 egg yolk (pasture raised of course)
• 2 anchovy filets
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

Place all ingredients in a wide-mouth mason jar. Blend with an immersion blender until super smooth. You can of course do this in a blender or food processor as well.

Part of Make Your Own Monday

Parsley, Walnut, Feta Pesto

What makes pesto pesto? I wanted to make some today but the only problem was I had no basil, pine nuts or Parmesan cheese. But I did have parsley, walnuts and feta. Is this how new recipes are created, through substitution?

I used all local ingredients (except walnuts and olive oil) care of the farmer’s markets this weekend. Even the cheese came from goats I milked and then turned into feta. How’s that for real food!

• 2 cups parsley
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/4 cup feta cheese
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• salt to taste

Whirl everything but the olive oil in a blender until well chopped. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until it’s all incorporated.
We used it on pizzas today and it was so good! I would have taken a picture of it but I thought of it when it was too late. We ate it all.