January Freezer Meals

I swear, one of the best parts of cooking a ton of food in one day, is the satisfaction of laying it all out and surveying all of your hard work.

This Once A Month Cooking round, I did it at my friend Lauren's house.  She has an awesome kitchen and tons of toys and her husband works from home, so he was able to step in and pitch hit, when needed.  Although, in true husband form, he wasn't that helpful, but it was a nice idea.  She also has a learning tower.  I had been wanting one for awhile, but after spending all day in the kitchen and using hers it sealed the deal for me and we got one shortly after.

We made 6 recipes and doubled them, so we each got two containers of each recipe.  Two of the recipes, the Beef Stew and Apple Pie Porkchops, were big ah-ha moments for me. They were the only two recipes that were slow cooker meals.  So all you do is compile the ingredients, freeze it and then later dump it in the slow cooker.  How awesome is that?

Here are the links to the recipes we used:

Chicken Nuggets


Meatloaf (the recipe is in Nourishing Traditions, and its amazing).  Lauren had a great idea of smooshing the mixture into finger size portions instead of a big loaf, so that you can defrost them individually and serve to little ones for lunch.


Buffalo Shrimp


Broccoli Cheddar Soup


Beef Stew

Apple Pie Pork chops 

Has anyone else adopted freezer cooking as their main style of cooking family meals?

-Stephanie ;)

Toddler Smoothie Recipe

I started making fruit smoothies for Penelope when she was about 8 months, maybe even a little younger, I can't remember. Note to self for next baby: write shit like that down!!

My love for smoothies has just gotten deeper over time.  They are a powerhouse and workhorse in my arsenal for making sure Penelope gets all her nutritional needs met in a given day. As she gets pickier and pickier, navigating her way through toddlerhood and loving the realization that she can say NO! To EVERYTHING!  She used to eat anything I put in front of her: pickles, salmon, green peppers, whatever. Now, she still eats well, she just eats only certain foods. And it changes every day. One day she is a freak about bananas and peanut butter and the next she acts like its poison and gives me a look of how DARE I offer such a thing to her.

She gets a full mason jar of smoothie per day.   Sometimes a little more, sometimes less. I give it to her throughout the day. As a snack or apart of her meal, depending on her mood. No mater what I put in it she loves it. She has never turned her smoothie down, Thank You Jesus and Knock On Wood.

As for the recipe, it varies from week to week. I play with the combination of fruit to give her variation, or because something was on sale, but I always have a base of strawberries and blueberries, her all time favorite fruit, and then add whatever else I feel like.

I mix a full frozen bag of organic strawberries, a full bag of blueberries, then like half a bag each of two other types of fruit. Then I add a half bag of veggies, like frozen peas and usually a banana or two. One mom I know adds a bottle or two of pureed green veggie baby food. I have another friend who puts whole kale or spinach in hers and another puts spirulina in hers.  You could probably get away with putting a tablespoon or two of a powder veggies supplement.

When I blend it together, I add a tiny bit of fresh juice that I juice myself. Before I had a juicer, I bought the best organic juice I could get. I put in just enough to help with the blending and to give a little sweetness to the smoothie to make sure she eats it. One of  friends puts raw honey to add sweetness.

Then I pour the big batch of smoothie into individual jam sized mason jars. I label the top with the date and put them in the freezer.  As I go through the week I pull them out and defrost it the fridge.


Now comes the really nutritious part of the smoothie!

Once the mason jar has defrosted, I pour half of the smoothie into another clean mason jar. So I have two mason jars half full of the pure fruit smoothie.

Then I add one raw egg yolk, yes I said raw.  When she is older, I will probably start adding two egg yolks.

Then I add fresh, raw yogurt, that I make myself. When I first started making her smoothies, I added coconut milk keifer and then later I used raw cow milk kiefer. And only in the last month, I have been doing yogurt instead of keifer. I think she prefers the taste of yogurt.

Then I add more fresh juice, usually spinach-apple. This juice has very little apple, and mostly spinach.

By the time I add the egg yolk, the yogurt, and spinach juice the mason jar is filled back up again.

Adding the raw egg yolk and the yogurt add lots of protein to balance out the sugar of the fruit, so her blood sugar doesn't spike after drinking it. With the egg yolk and yogurt and spinach, you couldn't ask for a more perfect snack or accompaniment to a meal.  And by not freezing the egg yolk, yogurt and spinach, she is getting tons of raw, fresh ingredients chock full of important enzymes, good bacteria and nutrients.

Now, go make your tot a smoothie!  Oh, and I drink some too!  This is a perfect snack for any mom, especially a trying-to-conceive, pregnant, nursing mom.

Raw Egg Yolk for Babies?

So this was supposed to be a post about toddler smoothies, but as I started typing, it digressed into a post about raw eggs. So here you go: a post about why raw eggs are very important to your young child's diet.


Last night my husband and I got into an all out brawl, because he noticed me putting raw egg yolk into the blender and he was all: "um, are you putting raw egg yolk in her smoothie?" To which, I replied, "um, what does it look like?!" Imagine the sarcasm dripping from my lips, because I have been putting egg yolk in her smoothie for almost 6 months. 6 MONTHS! He has seen me make it, many a time, and he is JUST now realizing I put raw egg yolk in it?


Oh, Lord Jesus, save me now,  I just might kill him.


Anyway, so then he looses his mind and says that I should have talked him about putting raw egg in her smoothie before doing it and that he doesn't think its a good idea because she can get salmonella, blah, blah, BLAH.


So then I loose my mind, because he is essentially saying I am putting her in harms way, and here I am busting my ass to give Penelope 100% perfection, in regards to her nutrition, AND I can't freaking STAND IT, when people make fear based decisions and have not done any research whatsoever to back up their purely emotional reaction. The argument ends with me stamping me feet (seriously) and yelling, "I am RIGHT and you are WRONG!"


I know, I'm so mature, right?


Once I calmed down, I apologize and say I should have known that he would like to have a say in what goes in her smoothie (I love him, but good grief, the man has to have a say about EVERYTHING) and that he needs to do his research and back up his statements and then we can have a civilized conversation about what is best for Penelope later.


So now I have to gather my research and present my argument to Peter and all of you get to come along for the ride.


First off. Know your eggs. I would never in a million years give Penelope conventional, industrial raw eggs from the grocery store. Not even regular organic, "free range" eggs. I only give her eggs that I go and pick up myself from the farmer. In a pinch, I will buy farmer eggs from New Leaf, but that rarely happens anymore.


Here's a quote one of my favorite blogs, Nourished Kitchen:


"Raw egg yolk tends to get a bad rap – and it’s unfortunate that consumers have become so fearful of their food. While everyone recognizes potential dangers of food borne illnesses, like salmonella from raw eggs, what they don’t consider is that only about one in every thirty thousand conventional eggs is infected and the incidence is even less among pastured eggs in which hens are kept in optimally healthy conditions: on grass with free access to consume the foods most natural for them. Raw egg yolk, are a potently rich source for two nutrients critical to health: biotin and choline.  They are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, lecithin and enzymes."


Here are a couple of links from the Weston A Price Foundation website: 


This one has some information about egg allergies (usually kids are allergic to the egg white, not the yolk) and how many eggs to give a child per day (as many as they want!).


This one talks about how egg yolk supplies cholesterol needed for mental development as well as important sulphur-containing amino acids. Egg yolks from pasture-fed hens or hens raised on flax meal, fish meal or insects are also rich in the omega-3 long-chain fatty acids These fatty acids are essential for the development of the brain. Parents who institute the practice of feeding egg yolk to baby will be rewarded with children who speak and take directions at an early age. The white, which contains difficult-to-digest proteins, should not be given before the age of one year.


This one says that eggs have been a highly valued foods since the beginning of time—eggs from chickens, ducks, geese, turtles and fish. Egg yolks are the richest source of two superstar carotenoids—lutein and zeaxanthin. Not only are bright yellow yolks loaded with these fat-soluble antioxidant nutrients, they are more bioavailable than those found in vegetables, corn and most supplements. While these nutrients have a reputation of combating macular degeneration and cataracts and supporting overall healthy vision, they have a long list of other benefits, including protecting the skin from sun damage and even reducing one’s risk of colon and breast cancer.


Another quote from of one my favorite blogs, The Healthy Home Economist, from her post about The Right Way To Feed Babies, she says:


"Children who receive sufficient omega 3 fats in their diet tend to speak clearly and understand verbal direction from the parents at a very early age.    I just went back and looked at my children’s baby books and all 3 of them (even the boys) spoke short sentences by 15-17 months of age (with first words at around 7 months).   While these sentences were very simple (“Get that”, “Don’t want that”, “More of this”) I have no doubt that getting ample omega 3′s from their diet played a big part in their ease of communicating at an early age with clear enough diction to be understood by even those outside the family."


This is a quote from a local personal trainer and nutritionist: "raw eggs are soooooooooooooooooooooooo good for you!"


I mean really, do I need to say anything more after that?


Penelope is right on par with her verbal skills, which is pretty awesome, considering almost everyone (professionals we worked with when trying to get her to nurse) told me she would have speech problems from her tongue tie and TMJ.  And she astounds me by how much she understands.  Pretty much everything I say to her she understands completely.  Her perception of what I am saying is 100% right on.  Now, I do spend a fair amount of time talking to her, reading to her, doing baby sign language and other things to build her verbal skills, but I really think the egg yolks play a huge part in how smart she is.


I feel that good nutrition is so important in general, but even more so, the first 3 years.  What she is eating now is setting her up for the rest of her life.  Maybe its a little fanatical, but I think egg yolks are going to make a major difference in her mental success later in life.  I have no doubt in my mind that Penelope will be smarter and more emotionally balanced because she got enough omega- 3's in her diet early on.


Ok, ok, but why RAW EGGS you ask?


Heating the yolks destroys some enzymes, reduces certain nutrients and destroys cysteine (amino acid) which helps make glutathione, which is the master antioxidant (and p.s. Protandim also increases glutathione). They are also just plain easier to digest raw.  Raw egg yolk is the perfect complete protein.  Notice I said PERFECT, nothing comes close.


I found this analogy on another blog and I think it explains the difference between raw egg yolk and cooked well:
 
"Imagine a delicate crystal vase. Now imagine someone smashes it with a hammer and then tries to convince you that it is the exact same vase as before they destroyed it because, hey, all the pieces are still there. Well, obviously it's not the same. It not only looks different, but it can't perform the important function of holding fluids or displaying the beauty it had prior to being smashed with the hammer.
Well, an unheated egg yolk may seem similar to a cooked egg yolk, but it is far more complex and precise. We just don't appreciate that as we can't see it at the molecular level. If we could, the picture would be just as clear as with the vase."

So, to my dear husband, while I appreciate your concern for our daughter's health, and yes I should have asked you first,  please stop acting like I was putting a rice krispy treat and some goldfish in her smoothie.  I have this area of her life under control.  Not only do I have under control, what Penelope is eating is very close to absolute perfection.    You can thank me now, or thank me later,  as in, when she has a full ride to Standford Medical school.


And Mama's, if anyone gives you shit, just print this out and stamp your feet!!


Or on Facebook!

Recent Freezer Meals

This week I am going to cook it up with my friend Lauren and build up my freezer meal stash, and I remembered that I hadn't posted some of my freezer meals from November.

I made Chicken Enchiladas from Nourishing Traditions, Beef Empanadas and homemade tortilla chips and everything came out ah-mazing. 

Here's the Chicken Enchiladas recipe:

Meat from 1 whole chickens (save bones to make stock!)
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 green peppers, seeded and diced
2-4 jalapeno peppers( I actually omitted this, Peter doesn't like spicy foods)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or lard
1/2 cup tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
.5 teaspoon red chile flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, peeled and mashed

Saute the onions and peppers. Then add tomato paste, stock, oregano, cumin, red chile flakes, salt and garlic. Cut up chicken and stir meat in. Simmer for 15 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Serve up with the usual garnish sides, like avocado, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc.

Then I fried up my own tortilla chips and they were the bomb.com.  I bought sprouted tortillas and then sauted them in bacon grease. I have since also tried it coconut oil and it tastes almost as tasty as the bacon grease, but come on, its bacon grease, so nothing really can possibly taste better.   I am going to try and do it in lard next.  Yes, lard!  Lard is good for you! Isn't it awesome?  Check out this post to learn more about the awesomeness of lard and how to fry  tortilla chips in it.

Then, I made up some empanadas. These are such a BITCH to make, but they are so tasty.
Cooking up the inside is not such a big deal, it's the rolling every little empanada that takes forever. This is the recipe I use, but I tweak it a bit and add a couple of chopped up boiled eggs, because that is the way Peter's mom makes them.  Also, that recipe calls for cutting out circles from pie crust pastry, whoever thought that was a good idea was nuts.  So I have Peter's mom bring me loads of pre-cut empanada pastry from Miami every time she comes to visit and I keep them in our beloved deep freezer. 

Empanada freezer warning.... do not smooch them all into a container like I did. They will not pull apart. They will still cook up tasty, but you will have a one big glob of empanada. So next time, I am going to wrap the each with freezer paper or freeze them on a cookie sheet for a few hours first (kinda like blueberries) and then add them to a container already frozen.

Wish me luck for Wednesday! We are only doing 6 different recipes, but it's still gonna be a handful!

How to Make Homemade Cream Cheese

Making your own cream cheese is so freaking easy to do. And it's one of the first things you need to learn how to do, in order to have your own supply of liquid whey, which is needed to make your own fermented drinks and food.

First off, watch this video to get a good idea of what to do. This video is where I learned how to do this, she gives you everything you need to know.  She's my guru.

You MUST only do this with RAW MILK. It will not work with regular, pasteurized milk. Raw milk sours and is still very good for you to consume, pasteurized milk goes bad.  Check out this page for more info about the benefits of drinking raw milk.  If you are local, you can get raw milk from New Leaf Market.  You must ask for it and they go and get it for you from the back. It has a sticker on it that says For Pet Consumption Only.  Do not be alarmed, its the farmers way of not being held liable to the FDA.

First you pour your sour milk into a container, or just leave it the milk container it came in, and set it on the counter to clabber (it's your vocab word for the day!) for 24 to 48 hours.  If your milk is not sour to start out with, it will take much longer.  Keep your eye on it.  When it's thick and chunky, it's ready.

 

Then you pour the chunky, clabbered sour milk into a clean (with non-toxic detergent), rag and tie it up with a string or rubber band. Then you hang the rag up somehow, I just hooked the rubber band over a cabinet door knob, and let the liquid drip out into a bowl.  In Nourishing Traditions, they have a crazy picture of the rag tied to a wooden spoon held over a glass pitcher...but this is MUCH easier.

What drips out is whey. Once the dish rag is done dripping, you open it up and you what's left over is cream cheese! Every time I do it, the cheese tastes a little different and the consistency is different, so don't be alarmed if yours doesn't look like mine or Sarah's. 

You can eat it plain, but its a little too different than store bought for me to eat it straight, but I like it with strawberries or nuts and a little maple syrup with a slice of bread. I also use it plain in baking and cooking when a recipe calls for cream cheese or ricotta cheese. Delish!

Then you bottle up the whey, I use a mason jar, label it and put it the fridge.  It will last about 6 months in the fridge.

This post is apart of The Healthy Home Economist's Monday Mania.

 

Liquid Gold: Homemade Chicken Stock

A few weeks ago I made chicken stock from scratch. While I was making it, I was thinking how similar homemade stock is to breast milk. You know how people say breast milk is liquid gold because its so nourishing? Well, homemade chicken stock is like that as well, and it really looks like liquid gold. The cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, quotes Ageless Remedies from Mother's Kitchen, when describing chicken stock, saying it "heals the nerves, improves digestion, reduces allergies, relaxes and gives strength.



















Its also very tasty. Just yesterday, I was doing my Once A Month Cooking and I made Chicken Pot Pie with some of my broth. I have made the dish before, but this time using my own broth, it was much more flavorful.

When I made stock before, I froze it in large mason jars and it was really cumbersome to store, defrost and actually use the stock. Back then we didn't have a deep freezer so that was part of the problem. This time I went about it differently and stored them in plastic bags.  That way, you can freeze them flat like bricks and they take up less room in the freezer.   I did several 3 cup bags and lots of 1 cup bags, so I could just pull them out as needed and not waste any stock.

Here is the recipe from Nourishing Traditions:

1 whole free range chicken or 2 to 3 pounds of bony chicken parts ( I used pieces from 4 chickens and doubled the recipe)
4 quarts cold filtered water
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 celery sticks, coarsly chopped
1 bunch parsley

Place chicken pieces in a large stainless steel pot with water, vinegar and all vegetables except parsley.  Let stand 30 minutes to an hour.  Bring to a boil, and remove scum that rises to the top.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 6 to 24 hours.  The longer you cook the stock, the richer and more flavorful it will be.  About 10 minutes before finishing the stock, add the parsley.

Remove chicken pieces with slotted spoon.   Strain the stock into a large bowl and put in the fridge till the fat rises to the top and congeals.  Skim off this fat and reserve the stock in covered containers in your fridge or freezer.

July Once A Month Cooking

This month I made four different meals, similar to last month. I made Mousska, Chicken Enchiladas, Chicken and Walnuts, and Minestrone Soup. All recipes can be found in the cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.

The Mousska came out great, but preparing the eggplants was a little time consuming, so if you are making it by itself it would be fine, but to do it on a big cooking day like me, its not the best choice. Its the first time I have ever cooked with lamb, so I was proud of myself for branching out a bit.

The Chicken Enchiladas, came out very tasty, even though I forgot to mix in the spices. Using chicken from a roasted chicken, instead of baked or grilled chicken breasts, makes the dish so much more flavorful. I roasted 4 whole chickens at the same time, and later made a huge batch of chicken stock (tutorial coming soon!) And again, taking the meat off of four whole chickens to use for my recipes, was also super time consuming. Not that time consuming is bad, it usually indicates a nutritious meal, but its something to consider when planning your big cooking day.

The Minestone soup came out so-so. I used orzo instead of rice, because I had it on hand and I had never cooked with orzo before and I wanted to experiment. I ended up using too much orzo and the dish was very thick, not a soup consistency at all, but the flavor was good.

The Chicken and Walnuts was my favorite! You marinate and heat up the chicken in a pomegranate sauce. Super yummy. Next time, I am going to incorporate more pomegranate and sprinkle some pomegranate seeds on top.

Here is the recipe for the Chicken and Walnuts. I hope this ok, and I am not going to get in trouble for publishing this without permission..does anyone know the rules on that?

Chicken and Walnuts:
meat from 2 cooked chickens, cut up.
2 cups crispy walnuts
2-3 cups chicken stock
2-4 tablespoons Rapadura (I just used organic sugar)
12 ounces pomegranate juice
sea salt and pepper

Put walnuts in food processor and grind. Mix with stock, pomegranate juice and Rapaduara. Heat up slowly and simmer for about a half of an hour. Season to taste. Add chicken meat to sauce and simmer about 5 more minutes until chicken is warmed through. Serve with brown rice (we ate it with cous-cous instead).