the Soaking Cabinet

Ambrosia

2009-04-05T16:15:00.002-05:00

The dessert recipe Sally calls Ambrosia is worthy of the name. I could not believe how delicious it is!

Dried coconut, orange slices, chopped dates, and crispy pecans. That's all. Mix, chill, and eat. WOW!

And for all you fellow Orthodox, it's 100% lenten, too!

The Poison is OUT!

2009-03-13T09:20:00.002-05:00

Last night I went to sleep on the first try. I did not awaken with a start and scream, nor did I feel a shock go through me and startle me awake, nor did I choke and wake up gasping. I didn't take magnesium before bed, either. I can't remember the last time I could have reported having such an easy time falling asleep, but as of yesterday, I'm different: my amalgam fillings are GONE!

Chances are that those symptoms were from oral galvanism, the electrical currents produced by all fillings due to the dissimilar metals they are made of. I read about a woman whose oral galvanism made her vision flip upside down from time to time, after which she would faint. Amalgam replacement solved her problem, too.

My dentist, Dr. Sukel is great. He uses a unique device to protect the patient from mercury exposure during the procedure. It forms a collar around the tooth and concentrates very strong suction directly over the tooth being worked on. This works very well and I don't believe I was exposed at all. I also had an oxygen supply mask over my nose and a pair of swimming goggles.

I have been SO sick for so many years. My fillings went it 14 years ago when I was 15. I missed many days of school in high school, went to the ER for abdominal pain several times a year (including overseas!), developed horrible allergies to various things, and was treated for severe depression and anxiety. (This list is longer, but those are the "highlights".)

Now I must recover and detoxify, but the worst is over now and the world is SO MUCH BRIGHTER!!! Thanks be to God for all things!

Kefir and Whey Sodas

2009-01-23T15:21:00.001-06:00

These are the recipes I will be demonstrating tomorrow for my local WAP chapter!

Ginger Ale
In a 2 qt jar:
1 apple, quartered (or 10 slices dried apple) or one lemon, sliced
1-2 T ginger, ground or fresh or combination
1/4 c honey or rapadura/sucanat
1 T kefir grains
1 T malt syrup if using milk kefir grains
1 small piece of eggshell
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace

Close tightly and leave in soaking cabinet for 2-4 days. Soda should become fizzy and sour. Strain in colander to remove large bits and kefir grains. Reserve grains for future batches. Drink straight or with added natural sweetener, if desired. Extra-delicious chilled. May be fermented for several more days at room temperature after the kefir grains have been removed.

Beet Kvass
In a 2 qt jar:
2 large beets, peeled and chopped very coarsely
2 T salt
1/4 c homemade whey
filtered water to fill, leaving 1" headspace

Close tightly and set in your soaking cabinet for 2-5 days. Should be salty and fizzy. Strain and serve chilled. Beet kvass is not a fancy beverage, but a health tonic. Excellent for colds and fatigue.

Kefir Grains:
The kefir-fermented ginger ale below is actually a variation on an ancient fermented drink called water kefir. Ideally, it would be make with Sugar Kefir Grains (SKG), which are composed of glucose-eating microbes. However, these are not always available, though many of us have milk kefir grains. If milk kefir grains are used, fermentation is improved by the addition of barley malt syrup because maltose is more similar to lactose and preferred, over glucose, by the SKG organisms. Both SKG and milk grains are built out of calcium, which they need if they are going to proliferate. Proliferation is desirable because it not only increases your supply of kefir grains, but also ensures that the grains you already have are thriving. Once a set of milk kefir grains has been used in water kefir, it should not be used in milk kefir again, but reserved for its new purpose.

One simple method for using kefir grains in soda is to tie them into a little sachet with a piece of muslin cloth. This prevents them from getting mixed in with the other solid ingredients such as fruit and spices so that they are easier to retrieve at the end of a brew.

Homemade Whey:
Don't try to purchase whey for your beet kvass! To work properly, it must be microbiologically active. The best ways to make whey are to drain them off of kefir, curdled raw milk, or homemade yogurt. In a pinch, you could try using the whey from store-bought yogurt, but your results might not be good. (You'll recall that yogurt ferments at a warm temperature between 80° and 90°F. It is impractical and unnecessary to maintain those temperatures for beet kvass, so using yogurt cultures might prove problematic.) To drain whey off of kefir or sour raw milk, line a colander with a piece of muslin and fill with finished kefir which has begun to separate. Collect the whey in a bowl under the colander. Save it all! What doesn't go into your beet kvass can be used to start pickles, sauerkraut, and drinks, as well as adding the required acidity to your soaked grains. I keep whey in the fridge in jars for up to two months. If it smells bad, it is bad.

Kefir, Cheese, Cream, Butter, ...and Tomato Paste?

2009-01-16T09:39:00.003-06:00

The question posted to one of my local lists was: "I would like to make my own cheese, kefir, cream, butter and tomato
paste. I have no idea where to start." So I answered, and figured it would make a good blog post since I've been kind of preoccupied lately with newest baby and all!

Cheese is most easily made from kefir, so I'll cover those together. For a hugely extensive read on the subject of kefir and the cheese you make from it go to: Dom's Kefir In-Site However, he does not cover my favorite kind of kefir, which uses no grains, so you can start right away without finding a starter culture.

Here's how to do that:
Drop 1 tablespoon of raw honey into one quart of raw milk. Stir to dissolve honey. Leave this at room temperature for 12-48 hours, until it sours. It may take even longer for the first couple of batches depending on your ambient temperature and your honey's enzymatic activity, etc. The kefir is done when it is sour, slightly thickened, and not yet separated into curds and whey. On the first batch, the results are not usually very tasty, so you can take 1/4 cup of the finished kefir out as starter for your next batch, and then let the rest sit until it separates, and even a bit longer. This will become your cheese. Start your second batch by adding that 1/4 c kefir to a new quart (or two) of milk and waiting. Repeat for the third batch. You can expect a great-tasting (less pungent) kefir on your third batch.

To make the cheese:
I do not recommend cheesecloth for cheese, because the holes are too big to use only a single layer and it is not reusable. Instead, I prefer unbleached muslin, which is cheap and reusable and has exactly the right filter size for cheese.

1. Line a colander with the muslin and set it in a large bowl so you can collect and save your whey for other uses.

2. Dump in all the curdled kefir. Don't be alarmed if it smells very strong. As long as the smell is not like acetone or particularly "gross", you are on the right side of the microbial population. The sharpness of the smell (almost burns your nostrils) decreases later in the process. It is fine (and often important) to taste the cheese at any point in the process.

3. Collect the whey that comes off initially, and put it in a jar in the fridge. then set the whole operation in your soaking cabinet (or on the counter) and leave overnight to drain.

4. When you come back to it, stir it to help it continue draining. Repeat this every few hours until the curds are not very glossy. Remember to get rid of the whey in the draining bowl each time. You can dump it or save it. Either is fine.

5. Now salt your cheese to taste. The flavor will be quite unpleasant without salting, so taste it several times after you've mixed each addition of salt in well. You want to get the salt right! After you do this, you have a very nice, spreadable cream cheese which you can use with no further attention. The cream cheese is great on soaked dough flat bread, which you can make with some of that whey in the fridge. Or, you can proceed with the rest of the steps.

6. Pick up the corners of the muslin and gather them together, twist them all tightly together and twist up the ball of cheese in order to squeeze out more moisture. Tuck the "tail" of the cloth under the ball and set it back in the colander. Now, each time you visit your cheese, give it a little twist. You will be amazed at how much whey comes out of that curd! Eventually, your cheese will dry, in its cloth, to be quite firm to the touch.

7. Now you can unwrap it and oil it all over with olive oil or butter. Do this each day for 2 weeks. This step prevents the growth of surface mold.

8. Coat the entire thing with beeswax and put away to age for at least 3 months.

Cream
Cream is fairly easy to skim, but even easier to buy (if you can get the good, raw stuff!), since the skim milk you are left with after skimming is not really suitable for human consumption. If you must skim your own, it is pretty easy to cut off the top of a milk jug once the cream has solidly risen (give it a couple days). Or set it in a bowl to rise, to make skimming easier.

Butter
I love to make butter, even though it takes time, makes a mess, and seems expensive!
I use my electric mixer. Start with the cream at room temperature and beat it on the highest speed with your hand or stand mixer. It will go through the whipped stage and start to clump after that, getting yellower all the while. You will begin to think it looks like butter before it is butter.
...Don't give up!
...Keep beating, periodically scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper.
Then, fairly suddenly, the buttermilk will "fall" out. My first clue that this has happened is always the feeling of splattering buttermilk on my hand. At this point, stop the mixer and look, and you will see the oddly-colored buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. Use a large spoon to press clumps of butter together off to one side of the bowl. Pick up this clump and form into a ball with your hands. Rinse it by dipping it in a bowl of cold filtered water and then squash it again and rinse it again. If the water is sufficiently cold, the butter should not stick to your hands. Rinse a few more times until the buttermilk is all out. Stuff it in a jar, and there you go! Salt is also recommended by some, but I don't bother. I just add salt when I use it.

Tomato paste:
You can start with sauce, and reduce it in a saucepan over low heat. If you start with tomatoes, you make a pureed sauce first and then do the same. I'm not sure what else you want to know. You can spread it out and dry it in a dehydrator, too. Or in the oven on low. Great for your bumper crop! Not so great for tomatoes that come from trucks.... :-)

Sprout More!

2008-11-01T17:09:00.003-05:00

I got sick of sprouting in four or five separate quart-sized mason jars with fussy screen lids. The repetitive motions of filling and draining them all at once was getting to me. I never had enough bulgur on hand. I solved all of these problems at once by using....

BIGGER JARS!

This is a revelation, and epiphany, and otherwise, not really a religious experience. But I will not say that it wasn't life-changing!

I have some nice 2 liter hermetically-sealed jars, the kind with flip lids and removable rubber seals. I like them for making things fizzy, like kefir and ginger ale. So I sprouted in these, with no seals, and just used a strainer over the top when draining them. They made perfect and fast sprouts, which now fill my oven with their released moisture and my house with their aroma. (sorry, been reading a blog about bad english translations).

No Honey Needed

2008-10-31T10:33:00.002-05:00

I've been a little bothered by our high honey consumption, even though it is raw honey, just because I'm not sure about whether it interferes with remineralization of teeth and such. The kids expect honey in their oatmeal and milkshakes, and sometimes on bread and butter and we just seem to use it up fast. This morning, they wanted apple chopped into the oatmeal while it cooked because yesterday we bought some lovely romes at the Geneva Green Market. They also requested cinnamon, and even my sweet-toothiest boy did not ask for any honey in his cereal but just devoured two bowls. The kid that did ask for honey agreed when I said it didn't need any! One for the Mom Team!

Gentle Goat Milk

2008-10-17T10:44:00.000-05:00

I am happy to have goat milk these days. Five of us are trying to get over a chest cold, but I have had the worst case by far. Three nights of coughing-more-than-sleeping. But the first of those was the hardest, probably because I had a great big (cow) milkshake right before bedtime. This was a bad move and I knew it. But in the evenings I often crave milk, probably for the fat. Trouble is, cow milk makes most people phlegmy (is that the same as phlegmatic?). I guess this is considered normal, and I have read some explanations for it besides the standard "allergenic" argument, but in my case it is definitely true. Adding a lot of goo to the already stressed breathing system, though, is not fun.

So I've stuck to goat milk in the evenings for two nights. What a difference! No effect whatsoever on the throat, but I can still make a big yummy milkshake with honey and cocoa and whatever else it seems to need.

The milk is a bit tangier, but that is good for the purpose of keeping all two gallons from disappearing right away. The kids much prefer the cow milk, so they just ignore the jugs with white caps and leave my goat milk alone.

Update:

I made goat cheese! Very easy: just forget about the goat milk on the counter and in a couple of days, strain out the curds. At first I thought it was horribly bitter, but when I mixed in some salt, it became delicious! Goat milk doesn't give up its cream very easily, so it's easier to make a fatty cheese, too, where cow milk likes to separate if you let it curdle on the counter, but then the cheese isn't as good at all!

Good news on Teeth!

2008-09-18T22:25:00.005-05:00

Okay, for those of you who read this blog and haven't hopped on board in your own kitchens just yet, this news might be enough to push you over the edge and into vats of fermenting vegetables and jars of delicious raw butter and cream...

My teeth are GROWING BACK!

I had a couple of strange experiences which compromised the original design of my front teeth. One was chipping my tooth in a swimming pool by colliding underwater with the cranium of my dear friend Mollie. I'm not sure who got the worst of it, but I don't think I chipped her skull in the process, thankfully! The other incident occurred on the day I had my braces taken off. A glorious day, really, and one we all longed for when we were strapped with the darn things, but in my case the orthodontist took the length of my teeth too personally, I guess. He had been grinding off the leftover cement on the fronts of my teeth and rather abruptly informed me that my two front teeth were "too long" and would look better once he trimmed them down a bit. He didn't ask if I wanted that particular grinding done, but he just went ahead and zipped them down.

The chip is almost gone, AND my two front teeth are again longer than their neighboring teeth, as well as feeling sharper to the touch. This is super exciting to me, since teeth are the body's last priority and their healing is a good indication that my bones and the bones and teeth of the baby I'm carrying are all full of minerals!

The children's jaws are visibly wider than they used to be, in proportion to their faces, and the spaces for their teeth are expanding. My seven-year-old's lower adult teeth, having come in crooked and crowded, have spread out into a flat set of four across the front, looking very much like the teeth of healthy immigrants I've observed (not to mention envied!)

If you wish to pursue the dental angle on a Nourishing Traditions Diet, this video from the author of Cure Tooth Decay is a good place to start.

Dangers of GM foods.

2008-09-11T22:42:00.000-05:00

Link to video:
The PURE Gardener, Inc.: Hidden Dangers In Kids Meals
This is quite serious stuff. Another reason to stick with organics!

The best part of this video is the story about the Appleton Wisconsin schools whose student body has been turned from wild to wonderful with a simple change in nutrition.

I have to make a shout out to my mom here. She fed us kids well and we were SO much less grumpy and troubled than our peers. Maybe its even why we didn't "fit in" some of the time. But that's a small price to pay, and meant no nasty cocoa puffs for breakfast! I wonder how many of my classmates were mean or unhappy or goofed off because they were suffeing from high-calorie malnutrition. Thanks, mom!

Pizza: Next time I'll make more!

2008-09-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

Just served up some extremely quick and easy (not to mention TASTY!) pizza, without sacrificing NT principles, and without eating any phytates!

Bulgur flour to the rescue again!

The dough:
bulgur flour
butter
water
egg
a bit of white flour to finish it off into a stiff dough

I olive-oiled two cast iron pans and pressed the dough in as a thincrust. Baked about 10 min at 350 degrees; you want it to be dry to the touch and possibly a little bubbly. I topped these with olive oil, organic marinara sauce (Trader Joe's if you must know!), good quality shredded mozzarella, and uncured pepperoni. Baked again, about 8 minutes. What really delighted me about the results was the sweetness imparted by the bulgur. The effect was like that which you get from a sweeter tomato sauce, and really pleasant. Comfort food without the discomfort or the life-sucking effects!

I only wish I'd made twice as much!

Time to sprout more wheat berries I guess!

Egg Rolls

2008-09-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

This is somewhat old news, but I can't believe I never wrote the post it deserves!

A couple of weeks ago a friend mentioned she had made egg rolls recently. She had used store-bought wrappers and cabbage-carrot filling and they sounded just fabulous. But, of course, when I went to Whole Foods to find "healthy" wrappers, all they had were the usual with white flour. What did I expect? Sprouted, sourdough, or whey-soaked egg roll wrappers? Hardly. Not in my right mind, anyway.

So I set out to make them from bulgur, hoping that this time the results would be worth the work, unlike my several bulgur flour mishaps.

The recipe I started with was run-of-the-mill, though some commenters said they had used whole wheat flour in it. That seemed like a good sign. But if you know me, you know I am not always a good pre-reader of recipes. It took me a while to realize that this recipe was making a flat, fried wrapper which could then be stuffed. And it used batter, not dough. So I tweaked a whole bunch and came up with something really yummy.

Wrapper:
1 egg, cold
3/4 c cold water (iced is good)
1 c bulgur flour (this is sprouted, dried and ground, if you recall, and you have to make it, since nobody sells it.)
about 1 c white flour
dash or two salt

My thinking is this: The bulgur flour is SO EXTREMELY nutrient rich that it should make up for the void found in the white flour. I've not experimented with using 100% bulgur, because I suspect it would not hold together as well or have as pleasant a texture. Someday, maybe I'll try that and let you know.

Mix all these ingredients together well except the white flour. Then add enough white flour to make a satisfyingly stiff dough. Let the dough stand while you make the filling.

Filling:
1 med-large cabbage
3-5 carrots
salt and pepper
leftover chicken, pork, or steak, cubed (optional)
1-2 scrambled eggs (optional)
garlic (fresh or granulated), to taste
ground ginger to taste (I don't measure spices. Washing those itty bitty spoons is a real pain)

butter, olive oil, and/or coconut oil for frying

Shred cabbage and peel and grate carrots. Saute in olive oil, butter, or a combination until soft and mellow. Add salt and pepper and spices to taste, and optional meat and eggs)

Break off a walnut-sized piece of dough (it really should break off. If not, you need to make the dough stiffer!) Roll into a circle or a squarish shape (not easy) about 3/16 inch thick (but please do not measure it!), using white flour to prevent sticking (yeah, yeah, you could figure that part out yourself).

Add a dollop of filling and wrap it so it looks like an egg roll.

Fry in the bottom of a wok with about 1/2" coconut oil, very hot, medium-high flame. Roll it around and make it look all bubbly and crispy.

Dip in a mix of soy sauce, honey, and apple cider vinegar. I can't bear to make up a recipe for that right now, so you will have to guess, sorry!

A Frosty

2008-09-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

The Frosty, as you can eat it at any Wendy's in America, is a nasty invention, if you know what you are eating. If you are a little kid, and you have no idea, they are wonderful. Malty, chocolaty, chilly and yummy!

I'll admit right here that chocolate is the one food about which I can't agree with Sally Fallon. Coffee is too stimulating for me, but chocolate has never been a real problem, and I don't avoid it, as long as I control how it is sweetened.

That said, I made a yummy frosty-style shake today. Pretty good imitation. If I put it in the ice-cream machine, I think it would have been almost indistinguishable. However, it lacked the "feature" of making my throat itch. Frosties always had that miserable effect-- from the corn syrup.

3 egg yolks
2-3 c raw milk
2 T coconut oil
cocoa powder to taste
honey to taste
barley malt syrup to taste

Blend it up, and enjoy!

Isn't that Hereditary?

2008-09-01T17:31:00.000-05:00

Nearly every time I explain W. A. Price's discovery of crowded dental arches in the children of malnourished (read: refined diet) mothers, I get the response: "Isn't that hereditary?"

Here is the part of WAP's book which clears it up. Case closed... for me, anyway.

Buttermilk Yeast Bread

2008-08-31T12:54:00.000-05:00

I know Sally calls it a compromise bread, but I've found that I can actually make it with no white flour. It's cooling right now, since I just took it out of the oven. I've just been working to get the proportions tight enough to yield a less-wet dough after the proofed yeast has been added. The dough was on the sticky side when it went into the pan today, but it didn't seem to affect the outcome. My family loves this bread. I make it with kefir instead of buttermilk, which works fine. I only include the baking soda if the dough is particularly sour, and I rise it only a short time. Still, the texture is perfect for sandwiches and toast, or even stuffing. I never measure anything, so I'm not sure about the details.

Update on Corned Beef

2008-08-18T12:19:00.000-05:00

I'll be trying again soon. The beef never got tender enough to eat without a lot of work. So I cooked it up and then it was fine, as well as yummy.

I'm on the lookout for a better recipe.

I did, however, make a sort of hybrid keuftah/kibbeh from ground beef and bulghur. This was delicious and easy to eat. I'll try to remember what I put in it and post that... later.

Right now we are fighting the second mold infestation of the month!

Achin' for Acres

2008-08-16T22:30:00.000-05:00

This is an "anybody out there?" post.

We are extremely motivated to homestead to some extent. We're looking for another family to partner with. Anybody got a lead?

Corned Beef

2008-08-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

Here is the recipe for corned beef, slightly adapted from Nourishing Traditions, because clarity became an issue in her version.

Corned Beef
1 brisket, about 2 lbs
1 tablespoon juniper berries, crushed
5 bay leaves, crumbled
2 teaspoons whole mustard
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 T sea salt
1 cup filtered water
1/2 cup whey (drained off kefir or yogurt)

Rub both sides of brisket with salt and spices. Put it in a bowl that just contains it. Mix water and whey and pour over brisket. Cover and soak 2 days, turning frequently. Transfer to refrigerator. Tenderizes with time.

You should see the man of the house wolf this stuff down. "Wolf" is a good word for it, because the meat is raw, after all!

Farming...

2008-08-07T09:29:00.000-05:00

So with the fun I'm having in the kitchen and the ridiculous price I pay for some products because they are so rare (raw, local, organic), I dream & dream & dream of having our own farm. Joel Salatin is a farmer and advocate of sustainable farming and he wrote this mildly discouraging little piece, which shares a title with one of his books. I liked it, but now I can't imagine the bureaucracy I'd have to go through! Oh dear!

Zoning laws control many things. The only reason we don't have chickens in our backyard is that it is illegal to do so in our city. I sometimes wonder if the moral imperative of feeding my family good food is superior to that of obeying the law... but I don't know how to decide, nor how to convince those that would need to agree with me!

Pancakes: Better soaked than sprouted

2008-07-18T11:44:00.001-05:00

The recipe for pancakes I've used many times was Sally's, using an overnight yogurt soak. These have always been delicious and indistinguishable from "regular" pancakes.

So, having an abundance of bulgur flour (finally), I set out this morning to make some of it into quicker, easier pancakes, or so I thought. I used kefir and baking soda, an egg, some milk, a dash of rapadura, salt, and melted butter in the batter. But cooking them was not so easy. Even leaving them several minutes on each side at medium heat till well-browned, the middles we soggy. I consider myself an experienced pancake-fryer, and this was not like any pancake-frying experience I've had before. I've even mastered the art of dosa-making, but this was not working out. The kids ate the pancakes without complaint, but I found them unsatisfactory in texture. I think the sogginess was only the beginning. Even the one I managed to make that was dry all through had a taste or texture of raw flour. I'm guessing that foods which cook in only a few minutes are unsuited for bulgur flour. Too bad Sally doesn't read my blog. I bet she knows!

The Wonder of Bulgur Flour

2008-07-17T23:51:00.000-05:00

On this topic, I begin wondering if Sally and I would have a point of disagreement, or if I am just reading her wrong... here goes:

In Nourishing Traditions, we learn that all grains must be soaked, sprouted, or soured to become health-giving foods. I totally buy the explanation and the reasons and I definitely find the results of following these rules to be as beneficial as advertised. My issue is this. NT seems to put the emphasis on soaking and souring, and to largely ignore the simplifications that arise when sprouted flour is used. Sprouted flour (aka bulgur flour) is made by sprouting and then drying the grain before grinding. This is the same thing as "malting," a term which had previously puzzled me endlessly. Malt, while not quite like your no-longer-beloved malted milk balls, is quite sweet, such that the children always want to eat the dried sprouts out of the hopper of the grinder, and so they do. Once ground, this flour needs no special treatment to free its nutrition, although all types sprouted seeds should be cooked to neutralize "certain irritating compounds" (I don't know, go ask Sally!) whose natural function it is to discourage animals from eating the newest grasses before they have a chance to really grow up.

So I take this sweet flour and make cookies from NT, and a whole bunch of other goodies like biscuits and quick breads. Once I locate some replacement muffin tins (moving loss), I'll do that too. Other than the cookies, though, Sally's recipes for the above are all soaked-flour versions, not bulgur flour.

But why? Bulgur is wonderful. Sprouting enhances and increases the actual quantity of nutrients. The taste is delicious and extremely satisfying. My family (me included) seems to deeply crave everything I make with this precious stuff. So that's my open question: why not more malt?

Crock Stock

2008-06-30T23:41:00.000-05:00

Bone broth, or "real stock," as I like to think of it, is not a new thing for me, but the Nourishing Traditions method is a favorable enhancement. I used to make stock by boiling bones for no more than an hour or two, and after that toss in the veggies and whatever else to make soup. These stocks were thin and clear, looking a lot like the stuff that comes in a can, although I was pleased to know they were fresh and MSG free. Now, thanks to NT, I've started making long-simmer stocks in the crockpot, letting them go a full 24 hours. That is, I'll use a ladle-full here and there after 5 or 6 hours have passed, but I always replenish the water I remove and it always simmers overnight.

I use my small crockpot by filling it with bones, drumsticks, or meaty beef bones. I fill to the brim with filtered water and add a dash of vinegar (this draws the calcium out of the bones for a mineral rich stock. One goal is to get a stock that is rich in gelatin. To that end, I hope to someday find a source of chicken feet to include in the chicken stocks, and beef hooves for the beef stocks. Here is the WAPF article on stock from Sally Fallon.

I also like to put eggshells in my stock, as long as there is no meat I plan to retrieve from the bones later. I read in one of those direct mail health ads from some alternative MD that this increases the content of hyaluronic acid, which is especially good for the joints. I haven't really looked into the claim, but I'm guessing there's no harm in it, at the very least. Sally does discuss hyaluronic acid in the above-linked article, though.

The kids adore chicken broth. Today I made egg drop soup from it by simply beating an egg in each kid's bowl before adding the hot broth. YUM! These same children all used to categorically reject all soups. Now they complain if anyone else gets soup and they don't!

Noodles are Such a Simple Food

2008-06-16T14:29:00.000-05:00

Making Pierogies the way I did was a bit sour and the dough took several days, with maintenance. I just discovered, however, that the dough I use for chapati (just flour and whey) make very good dough for pierogies, which I filled with beef and homemade cream cheese with Italian spices. Ravioli in the wrong shape! Delicious. I topped it with some marinara sauce and there you have it! Kids gobbled it up, though 2 of them find the yogurt cream cheese to tangy. To the cheese I added basil, oregano and salt, and the same with the ground beef. You don't really have to make that many, either, as they are very filling! Each kid ate about 3, and I had maybe 4. I'm stuffed!

The dough had a 24-hour soak, plus some time in the fridge while I got my act together.

Chapati

2008-06-13T01:01:00.000-05:00

One major challenge in eating NT style is maintaining grains. The few times I've cheated and served regular old whole-wheat pasta, I've really regretted it. I end up feeling pretty gross as well as unsatisfied. This evening, I just baked potatoes, which is fine, but there we're really enough of them. (Later, little Herman wolfed down 3 bowls of leftover rice, if that is indicative of anything.) I made pierogies once, which was good. I've tried to make Sally's Yogurt Dough but I couldn't get it to even mix up right. Well, if the idea is to sour the flour, whey works too. That's what is used in the noodle dough, which gave me an idea...

There's this Indian flatbread I've been making for years. I learned by getting mad when an Indian friend decided her method and recipe were secret. So I turned to Madhur Jaffrey for help. In An Invitation to Indian Cooking, the recipe is as simple as you can imagine: whole wheat flour, water, and a dry frying pan. No oil. These are delicious breads, actually, and they puff when you make them, forming a pocket. But I have to admit that in the original, they were always a bit gritty. Interestingly, the recipe calls for a standing period for the dough of at least 30 minutes, and then adds, "If you wish to leave it longer, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. It will easily stay 24 hours." This got me to thinking that perhaps this note was something of a holdover from days gone by when an overnight soak was expected for this bread. It would not surprise me. So I tried it with whey, overnight, and the results were fabulous.

Steps:

1) Find any old chapati recipe on the web, but one which makes the number of servings you want.

2) Disobey any white flour ingredient (except for dusting) and use white whole wheat flour for the totality of the recipe.

3) Substitute whey from yogurt or kefir making instead of water.

4) Leave dough overnight, or at least 12 hours.

5) Fry (omit any frying oils in the recipe) and enjoy with or without butter.

6) Repeat if desired.

Day/Week of Firsts

2008-06-08T02:43:00.000-05:00

Some nice new progress today. I've had ginger beer brewing on the counter in my largest stock pot for five days, and just a few minutes ago, I bottled it. Nothing to it, really. Poured it into hermetic jars (the kind with a gasket and wire clasp) and put them in the basement. We took a big outing to The Container Store today and bought a handful of these in the 2qt size. Oh, and we also swung by the Sears Outlet and bought a shiny new dishwasher. This is very happy news, since about 75% of the "all day" I've been spending in the kitchen has been doing the washing up, which never ever ends. I go through such amazing quantities of pots, pans, bowls, jars, cutting boards, and gadgets that I must constantly wash them. Then there's the actual eating dishes, which get lost in the mix, and nobody can find a cup or a fork or a bowl and the little people get all disgruntled, since they are hungry and need a dish.

The other really new thing I did today was render suet into tallow. Very easy, really. I used this information but I omitted the baking soda, since we are going to eat the stuff, not use it for soapmaking. It amuses me how "evil" animal fat has become such that nobody really eats it anymore. Tallow has the advantage of not going rancid very easily so it can be reused when there is excess.

The Kombucha "mushroom" (SCOBY) also arrived this week. I have a brew going with that, too, but it's not ready to test for another 2 days. Boo hoo. We are craving its goodness. Azomite powder is here as well, but I haven't had the guts to drink any yet. Its richness is feeding all the veggies in my garden, though. I anticipate yummy results.

This week was also the first time I made pierogies, which are the same thing as variniki, pretty much, and also the same thing as these,which are what I made. Real noodles, but soured to be healthy and oh so yummy. The kids are begging to have them again. For filling, I used leftover turkey breakfast sausage from Nourishing Traditions and added plenty of sauteed buttery onions. I topped them with cheddar, mostly for the effect of adding flavor to the outside, since the kids don't always bite things before they reject them. Fortunately, that proved not to be an issue with these!

I'm reading here and there that Kombucha is to be used judiciously. This is interesting and I take it to heart. Several sources call it an herbal remedy, rather than a beverage, and say not to push it. Supposedly, the physiological activation of mineral ions can cause you to actually lose minerals. Not a good result, but the evidence suggests that this is not any more likely with kombucha than with a glass of lemonade.

Good things come with caveats. Often.

DOSAS!

2008-05-31T19:32:00.001-05:00

This is exciting because I have always wanted to make real, authentic, yummy Masala Dosa (pronounced dosha). Sally Fallon includes a recipe under the title Indian Style Pancakes. But I think they are the furthest thing from pancakes, notwithstanding the fact that they are fried in a pan.

The reason I am thrilled is that I had tried before, but taken some bad advice and tried a shortcut which skipped the fermentation step. (This caused some amazing GI distress and I would recommend it to no one!) The beans and rice are made into a paste and fermented together overnight. I had heard about this, and it did sound like too much work. Thanks to Nourishing Traditions, I have learned that soaking, fermenting, and other overnight processes are not at all time consuming, unless, of course, you feel the need to watch them happen! Since there's no time for that, it is usually a five or ten minute investment at the front end. The best part is that I already know what we are having for supper tomorrow and there's no going back, which means I will get the potatoes in time and I will not have to fret all day tomorrow about what I will serve.

The dosas themselves are perfect the way Sally writes it, but I will share the filling recipe here.

Fry one onion (white or yellow) in ghee (clarified butter) with a pinch of asefotida (also called hing), 2 T black mustard seed, and a half teaspoon cumin seed, until onions are somewhat soft. Add 1T turmeric powder and cayenne to taste, saute briefly, and then add 4 cups peeled, chopped potatoes, 2 optional tablespoons cilantro, one can tomato paste, and a little water (may substitute plain tomato sauce for paste + water). Add more water if potatoes stick. Cook until potatoes are soft and sauce gets saucy. Oh yeah, and plenty of salt. Potatoes eat salt!

Plop a blob of the above filling in each dosa just before serving and fold it over. Yum!

Serve with coconut chutney (I'm experimenting still).

What's in my Soaking Cabinet

2008-05-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to photograph the cabinet I've dedicated to all overnight, room-temperature food preparation processes. The bottom shelf is full. An array of bowls holds some combination of the following: soaking millet, soaking brown rice, soaking porridge, brewing kefir, fermenting sauerkraut, sourdough starter, rising yogurt dough (is this supposed to be kept warmer?), and draining cream cheese. In the future I hope to rotate in curing meats and plenty of other pickling fruits and veggies.

It's the corner cabinet that runs all the way up to the back wall behind the sink, so it is relatively difficult to access, and this is both a help and a problem. It's nice because I don't want to use that cabinet for anything I use constantly, like pots and pans or drinking glasses, but I also have a problem with things spilling on the way in and out. It is just awkward. As I soak larger quantities of things, with the growing confidence that I will actually cook them soon, I need to find taller containers, not larger-diameter ones. This will keep spillage down and also help me fit plenty of microbial projects into the space, which can be as high as I want, but not infinitely long or deep. I've also learned the hard way that some of those cute and sturdy glass mixing bowls I recently purchased cheap at the second-hand shops are not ideal. The ones with sloped sides: \_/ are very easy to slosh, especially on the way out. Bowls and crocks like this: |_| are much better.

I finally had a truly successful batch of kefir, one which was hard to stop drinking instead of hard to start. I used the no-grains method, which, as I have learned, takes a few batches to bring it up to snuff. I put a tablespoon of raw honey (it MUST be raw) in a quart of raw milk. Two days later I had a kefir-like substance which had curdled beyond drinkability (at least for me; Ryan drank it happily). The texture was just too lumpy. But I persisted, as I had heard I should, and used some of this batch as starter for the next and repeated the process and so on. I think it was the third or fourth try that did not curdle, but turned thick and creamy and only slightly mottled in texture. This was very tasty and much much easier to swallow. Whatever the flavor and texture, though, I have always noticed that kefir makes me feel good when I drink it after eating protein and fats. Lots of enzymes.

The other upside is that the less-than-perfect batches had the positive side effect of making Lactobacillus-rich whey, which is the starter culture to make sauerkraut, pickles of all kinds, and the soaking medium for grains.

The Sweet Life

2008-05-15T09:41:00.000-05:00

Abandoning sugar has been a keynote for me. Sugar cravings were a plague, not only mine, but the kids', especially Myron, who seemed always to be begging for sweets of all kinds. Two movie-theater boxes of candy that had come home with us as part of a door prize from a church party sat, staring, on the hutch-top. the SweeTarts were most obnoxious, having the "virtue" of not containing corn syrup. I liked to pretend that this fact could outweigh their other ingredients, as if the omission were going to be noted by my cells and taken as some kind of penance to expiate things like Blue 2 Lake. This was before beginning the Nourishing Traditions regime. So I gave in now and then and had one, or two, or a few that I didn't bother to count. But they made me feel yucky. They only intensified the deep hunger I was trying to relieve, and then I'd start shaking on top of that.

I'm trying to remember what we ate the very first night I made a "WAP" supper, which essentially meant: soak the rice and butter everything, but I draw a blank. Whatever it was, though, the desire for sugar seemed to halt abruptly. I had not felt this satisfied and "fed" in ages. the next morning was soaked porridge with a goodly helping of raw honey, butter, raw milk, and flax seed. The satisfaction continued. As time went on, the box of colored, flavored sugar pellets gathered dust and I rather forgot about them. I noticed Myron's pleas declining in frequency as well. And whenever he does say, "I just want something sweeeeeeet, Mama!" I hand him a teaspoon of raw honey, which makes him happy. Or a slice of melon, or an apple (peeled), or a bowl of frozen blueberries, or a few raisins.

Finally, one evening Ryan threw out the forgotten box of SweeTarts, along with their companion, an unopened box of Good & Plenty, which now sounds like a better description of my new menus than a box of empty candy.

Getting Started

2008-05-14T23:23:00.000-05:00

Although I had heard the title before, I stumbled upon Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, very recently, with the help of this website. And I am extremely grateful that I did! It has been less than a week, but the benefits of the changes I've made in how we eat are very evident.

I was raised in a home of good cooking and good eating. Our diets were guided by the sound principle of variety and the intentional application of this had great results. My mom, like her own mom, knows how to cook and to cook well, so our food was always abundant, appealing, and delicious. There were always vegetables on the table, from our garden whenever possible. But something I have learned during recent months has finally been confirmed by Sally's book:

The quality of food is only as good as the quality of its production.

We know this intuitively, right? But when a food looks and smells and tastes fine, we ask no questions about what's really inside. By production I do not mean preparation. I'm referring instead to the farming, processing, packaging, and distribution elements that go into the product before it even reaches our pantry. Every decision made at every stage of that process affects the nutritional fitness of the final result. This reality is rough terrain to discuss in some circles, and can be a touchy subject. I can understand the attachment a person has to his own preparation of food, and the desire to be seen as doing well by those eating his food. However, when the fault for nutrient-poor food is not that of its chef, but that of those farther up the chain, who better than that very chef to turn around and fight back with whatever utensil he has in hand?

Better yet, I'm fighting with my wallet. The grocery stores see me less and less. The farmers sell me my food directly... more and more and more. Sorry, Trader Joe, but to me you are the middleman!