Chicken Bone Broth (Nourishing Traditions, pg 124)

Grandmother Knew Best

Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily-not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons--stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

Fish stock, according to traditional lore, helps boys grow up into strong men, makes childbirth easy and cures fatigue. "Fish broth will cure anything," is another South American proverb. Broth and soup made with fishheads and carcasses provide iodine and thyroid-strengthening substances.

When broth is cooled, it congeals due to the presence of gelatin. The use of gelatin as a therapeutic agent goes back to the ancient Chinese. Gelatin was probably the first functional food, dating from the invention of the "digestor" by the Frenchman Papin in 1682. Papin's digestor consisted of an apparatus for cooking bones or meat with steam to extract the gelatin. Just as vitamins occupy the center of the stage in nutritional investigations today, so two hundred years ago gelatin held a position in the forefront of food research. Gelatin was universally acclaimed as a most nutritious foodstuff particularly by the French, who were seeking ways to feed their armies and vast numbers of homeless in Paris and other cities. Although gelatin is not a complete protein, containing only the amino acids arginine and glycine in large amounts, it acts as a protein sparer, helping the poor stretch a few morsels of meat into a complete meal. During the siege of Paris, when vegetables and meat were scarce, a doctor named Guerard put his patients on gelatin bouillon with some added fat and they survived in good health.

The French were the leaders in gelatin research, which continued up to the 1950s. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their milk. The American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that as gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut. Even the epicures recognized that broth-based soup did more than please the taste buds. "Soup is a healthy, light, nourishing food" said Brillant-Savarin, "good for all of humanity; it pleases the stomach, stimulates the appetite and prepares the digestion."

Read More here http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/broth.html

PROJECT BONE BROTH

Start Time: 1:30PM, End Time: 8:00AM

Bone Broth at 10:11 PM

Chicken Stock

1 whole free-range chicken or 2 to 3 pounds of bony chicken parts, such as necks, backs, breastbones and wings*
gizzards from one chicken (optional)
2-4 chicken feet (optional)
4 quarts cold filtered water
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped
1 bunch parsley

*Note: Farm-raised, free-range chickens give the best results. Many battery-raised chickens will not produce stock that gels.

If you are using a whole chicken, cut off the wings and remove the neck, fat glands and the gizzards from the cavity. Cut chicken parts into several pieces. (If you are using a whole chicken, remove the neck and wings and cut them into several pieces.) Place chicken or chicken pieces in a large stainless steel pot with water, vinegar and all vegetables except parsley. Let stand 30 minutes to 1 hour. Bring to a boil, and remove scum that rises to the top. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 6 to 8 hours. The longer you cook the stock, the richer and more flavorful it will be. About 10 minutes before finishing the stock, add parsley. This will impart additional mineral ions to the broth.

Remove whole chicken or pieces with a slotted spoon. If you are using a whole chicken, let cool and remove chicken meat from the carcass. Reserve for other uses, such as chicken salads, enchiladas, sandwiches or curries. Strain the stock into a large bowl and reserve in your refrigerator until the fat rises to the top and congeals. Skim off this fat and reserve the stock in covered containers in your refrigerator or freezer.

Mariko & Jator & Sally

Has anyone seen Julie & Julia?? It was great! Julia Child is so cute - I had no idea!

In honor of this beautiful movie about food and creativity - Jator and I will also be undertaking the task of mastering a cookbook. Our cookbook of choice?? Nourishing Traditions.

Unlike Julie, however, Jator and I are much more realistic with our amibitions ;) and therefore rather than attempting to tackle at least one recipe a day, we will try to tackle at least one recipe a week and post about it on our blog.

Leave us comments & feedback!

Jator tries LIVER!!

In an attempt to make liver a bit more palatable, Jator minced it up and mixed it with some ground beef and BBQ'd some patties. Result - "can't really taste it." I guess that's a good thing.

The Liver Files

Recipes and Lore About Our Most Important Sacred Food By Lynn Razaitis

Since history began, "liver has ranked above all other offal as one of the most prized culinary delights. Its heritage is illustrious--whether savored by young warriors after a kill or mixed with truffles and cognac for fine patés de foie gras." So write Margaret Gin and Jana Allen, authors of Innards and Other Variety Meats (San Francisco, 1974).
Practically every cuisine has liver specialties. Some cultures place such a high value on liver that human hands can’t touch it. Special sticks must move it. The Li-Chi, a handbook of rituals published during China’s Han era (202B.C. to 220A.D.), lists liver as one of the Eight Delicacies. Throughout most of recorded time humans have preferred liver over steak by a large margin, regarding it as a source of great strength and as providing almost magical curative powers.

A LONG LIST

So what makes liver so wonderful? Quite simply, it contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. In summary, liver provides:
An excellent source of high-quality protein
Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
One of our best sources of folic acid
A highly usable form of iron
Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA.

ANTI-FATIGUE FACTOR

Liver’s as-yet-unidentified anti-fatigue factor makes it a favorite with athletes and bodybuilders. The factor was described by Benjamin K. Ershoff, PhD, in a July 1951 article published in the Proceedings for the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.
Ershoff divided laboratory rats into three groups. The first ate a basic diet, fortified with 11 vitamins. The second ate the same diet, along with an additional supply of vitamin B complex. The third ate the original diet, but instead of vitamin B complex received 10 percent of rations as powdered liver.
A 1975 article published in Prevention magazine described the experiment as follows: "After several weeks, the animals were placed one by one into a drum of cold water from which they could not climb out. They literally were forced to sink or swim. Rats in the first group swam for an average 13.3 minutes before giving up. The second group, which had the added fortifications of B vitamins, swam for an average of 13.4 minutes. Of the last group of rats, the ones receiving liver, three swam for 63, 83 and 87 minutes. The other nine rats in this group were still swimming vigorously at the end of two hours when the test was terminated. Something in the liver had prevented them from becoming exhausted. To this day scientists have not been able to pin a label on this anti-fatigue factor."

To read on, go to http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/liver.html

Fermented Ginger Carrots & Kim Chi

GINGER CARROTS

4 cups grated carrots, tightly packed
1 tabsp freshly grated ginger
1 tbsp sea salt
4 tbsp whey

Nourishing Traditions writes: "These are the best introduction to lacto-fermented vegetables; the taste is delicious; and the sweetness of the carrots neutralizes the acidity that some people find disagreeable when they are first introduced to lacto-fermented vegetables. Ginger carrots go well with rich foods and spicy meats."

In a bowl, mix all ingredients and pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer (I used the bottom of a glass cup) to release juices. Place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and press down firmly with a pounder or meat hammer until juices cover the carrots. The top of the carrots should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and leave at room temperature about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.

KIM CHI

1 head napa cabbage, cored and shredded
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 cup carrots, grated
1/2 cup daikon radish, grated (optional)
1 tsbp freshly grated ginger
3 cloves garlic peeled and minced
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
1 tbsp sea salt
4 tbsp whey

Place vegetables, ginger, garlic, red chile flakes, sea salt and whey in a bowl and pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer to release juices. Place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and press down firmly with a pounder or meat hammer until juices come to the top of the cabbage. The top of the vegetables should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.

Lentil Burger with homemade cream cheese and brussel sprouts

I used some of the leftover mix I had with the curried burger (see below) and mixed in some lentils that I soaked overnight and cooked in some chicken broth this morning. I added an egg and some coconut flour (optional) and then baked at 350 for 15 minutes.

The cream cheese was from my whey project and it tasted GREAT!!

Brussel sprouts were steamed and then sauteed in coconut oil with onions and garlic.

Raw Milk + 5 days = whey + cream cheese

How to make whey & cream cheese from raw milk -


Leave raw milk in a glass container for 4 days or until you see the milk start to separate (the milk on top will start to get chunky). Line a strainer with a thin dish cloth and place over a bowl. Pour the milk into the strainer, letting the whey drip through. Let strain for a few hours. Inside the dish cloth is cream cheese and the liquid strained through is whey. Refrigerated, the cream cheese will last for 1 month and the whey will last for 6 months.

I'm using the whey to soak my grains and to use for lacto fermentation, but whey can be used for a lot of purposes.

Phase II - anti-fungal tacos

Sprouted Corn Tortillas (only ingredients are sprouted corn and lime)
Avocado

Chicken Tomatillo -
saute 5 cloves of garlic, 6 chopped up husked tomatillos, half of a red onion, 2 seeded jalapenos, in some coconut oil
Once softened, set aside and put chopped up chicken breast into the pan and brown in some coconut oil for about 5 minutes. Add the Tomatillo mixture back in, add some chicken broth, 3 tbsp of lime juice, salt, and cumin. Cover and simmer for another 6-12 minutes.

We like to heat the corn tortillas in some coconut oil and salt (SO SO SOOOOO GOOD). Put the chicken mixture on top with some sliced avocado and viola! :)

The chiken mixture tastes WONDERFUL on its own, so if you are in phase I of the anti-fungal diet, just don't use the corn tortillas.

Raw Milk

Mark McAfee (owner of Organic Pastures), Billy Polson (owner of Diakadi Body), Christine (founder of CREMA), and ME -- at the "secret of Raw Milk" presentation in SF.

To learn more about the benefits of raw milk, go to www.organicpastures.com

I LOVE RAW MILK!!

Dinner at Nestor's

Pork with goji berries, spinach, cauliflower, red peppers, and pecans - sauteed in coconut oil. Well done Nestor!!

Easy Chicken Curry with Pumpkin Puree

Easy Chicken - Cut up chicken (I used breast) into one inch slices. Brown in some coconut oil (I used the leftover bacon grease from this morning), add some red onion and garlic and sautee for 2-3 minutes. Add about a 1/4 cup of chicken broth (more if you're using a lot of meat) and curry powder. Simmer and cover for 8-10 minutes. Take lid off and let the sauce thicken. YUM!

Pumpkin Puree - I steamed a little pumpkin, let it cool, and then put it in a food proccessor with some of the water that I used to steam it (so it had the pumpkin juices). Then, when I was ready to eat it, I just heated it up in a pan and then added some raw cream. I didn't need any seasoning or salt even.

Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch

Another Pollan article - kind of lengthy, so I excerpted by favorite parts!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=out%20of%20the%20kitchen,%20onto%20the%20couch&st=cse

"...After World War II, the food industry labored mightily to sell American women on all the processed-food wonders it had invented to feed the troops: canned meals, freeze-dried foods, dehydrated potatoes, powdered orange juice and coffee, instant everything. As Laura Shapiro recounts in “Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America,” the food industry strived to “persuade millions of Americans to develop a lasting taste for meals that were a lot like field rations.” The same process of peacetime conversion that industrialized our farming, giving us synthetic fertilizers made from munitions and new pesticides developed from nerve gas, also industrialized our eating..."

"...People think nothing of buying frozen peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for their children’s lunchboxes. (Now how much of a timesaver can that be?) “We’ve had a hundred years of packaged foods,” Balzer told me, “and now we’re going to have a hundred years of packaged meals.” Already today, 80 percent of the cost of food eaten in the home goes to someone other than a farmer, which is to say to industrial cooking and packaging and marketing..."

"...Cutler and his colleagues demonstrate that as the “time cost” of food preparation has fallen, calorie consumption has gone up, particularly consumption of the sort of snack and convenience foods that are typically cooked outside the home. They found that when we don’t have to cook meals, we eat more of them: as the amount of time Americans spend cooking has dropped by about half, the number of meals Americans eat in a day has climbed; since 1977, we’ve added approximately half a meal to our daily intake.

Cutler and his colleagues also surveyed cooking patterns across several cultures and found that obesity rates are inversely correlated with the amount of time spent on food preparation. The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not.

So cooking matters — a lot. Which when you think about it, should come as no surprise. When we let corporations do the cooking, they’re bound to go heavy on sugar, fat and salt; these are three tastes we’re hard-wired to like, which happen to be dirt cheap to add and do a good job masking the shortcomings of processed food. And if you make special-occasion foods cheap and easy enough to eat every day, we will eat them every day. The time and work involved in cooking, as well as the delay in gratification built into the process, served as an important check on our appetite. Now that check is gone, and we’re struggling to deal with the consequences..."

"...So I asked him how, in an ideal world, Americans might begin to undo the damage that the modern diet of industrially prepared food has done to our health.
“Easy. You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”

Curried Nutburger - YUM!

I took two bites and then had to take a picture and blog it because it was sooooooooo yummy! 4 patties are currently being cooked in my sun oven, we'll see if it works!

Curried Nutburger -

1/3 cup (dry) short grain brown rice (soaked overnight)
1/3 cup sunflower seeds (soaked overnight)
2 tbsp chia seeds (soaked overnight) - this is optional
1/2 of a red onion sauteed in coconut oil with 4 cloves of garlic & a cup of spinach
2 carrots steamed until soft
1 tbsp curry powder
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 egg

Mix together rice, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, onion, garlic, spinach, carrots and egg. Put into a food processor and process. Add curry powder and salt and whatever other seasonings you'd like. Put into a bowl and fold in the sifted coconut flour.

Now, you can either bake these (or sun bake them) or what I did with the picture above was cook it in some coconut oil and then I put a fried egg on top. So so sooooo good!!

Anti-Fungal Fried Okra

Cut Medium Sized Okra in half lengthwise and widthwise. Dip in some whisked eggs and then coat with almond flour. Fry in coconut oil for about 5 minutes, turning occasionally.

Coconut Biscuit with Raw Cheese

Biscuit Recipe:
1/4 cup raw butter
1/3 cup Sifted Coconut Flour
4 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp onion powder (optional)
1/4 tsp garlic granules (optional)
1/4 tsp baking powder

Blend together eggs, butter, salt, and onion and garlic powder. Combine coconut flour withy baking powder and whisk into batter until there are no lumps. Drop batter by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Jator's Anti-Fungal Pesto Chicken

Anti-Fungal Pesto Rub -
1/3 cup Olive Oil, 2 cups Basil, 3 cloves Garlic, 2 tsp Salt & Pepper, 1 tbsp lemon juice

My Sun Oven!!

Organic Raw Palm Sugar - superfood!

Another good sugar substitute

http://www.navitasnaturals.com/products/coconut/coconut-sugar.html

Egg, Raw Cheese and Avo on a coconut biscuit!

Almond Coconut Crackers with Raw Cheese

Salad w/ avocado, cream cheese, and sundried tomatoes....and a jalapeno "popper"

Almond Blueberry Pancakes for dinner - a success!!

Added coconut flour - viola!! Yum!

Anti-Fungal Bacon & Eggs with a Tomato Salad

Breakfast: Bacon & eggs with onion and butter masala sauce

Snack: Avocado

Lunch: Bacon & eggs and tomato, cucumber (thanks amber), red onion, red bell pepper, lemon and apple cider vinegar salad (with salt/pepper/garlic granules/red chili flakes)

Dinner

Dinner: Kale Chips and Pork Chop Masala

Lunch!

Lunch: Thai Coconut Chicken Curry & Sauteed red cabbage in coconut oil. YUM!

Almond Blueberry Pancakes - a disaster

I tried to modify the recipe to make fewer pancakes and I ended up putting too much salt in it. Not good - saved the batter, I'm going to try to salvage it tonight by putting some almond flour in there.

Sunday - 8/16

Breakfast: Spinach, turkey, corn, avocado, onion salad with olive oil dressing + leftover carribean chicken from last night

Snack: Strawberries

Lunch: Spinach, broccoli, avocado, asparagus, strawberry salad with olive oil dressing + leftover carribean chicken from last night.

Dinner: raw cashews

YUM

Breakfast:
Organic Whole Fat Yogurt & Stahlbush blueberries & raw almonds
Lunch:
Sockeye Salmon & Olive Oil, Brussel Sprouts, Onion, Carrots, Bell Pepper
Dinner:
Carribean Chicken (with lemon, garlic, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, jalapeno peppers, spices) with a corn & onion salad, tomatoes, avocado
Glass of biodynamic vino