Lima Beans in the Dip?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Joy

I knew I’d have some extra kids around yesterday so I decided to make bean dip. Carrots, celery, and beans are a cheap way to feed kids! Usually I’d have dried tomatoes or pesto to put in, but we’ve run out until tomatoes and basil are back in season. This time I had to make do with less exciting ingredients. I’m happy to say my lima bean hating friend ate some happily, and said I can tell you all she’d have never guessed it was made of the dreaded lima beans. The kids were not discerning. I have no idea what they thought about it. They just ate.

Rosemary Garlic Bean Dip

Ingredients

Garlic Rosemary Lima Bean Dip

Garlic Rosemary Lima Bean Dip

I actually made double this, but did it in two batches to make it easier on my food processor)

  • 2 cups prepared lima beans
  • 1/3 cup chicken stock (I used it full fat, straight from the pot of perpetual stock)
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 small sprig fresh rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cumin

Directions

  1. Peel and press your cloves of garlic into your food processor. Remove the leaves from the stem of your sprig of rosemary and add to food processor. Pulse to mince them further.
  2. Add the prepared lima beans and turn food processor on.
  3. Pour in the chicken stock, salt, and cumin, continuing to process.
  4. When it’s smooth, taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

This post is part of Fat Tuesday.

Posted in Basics | Leave a comment

Soaking Beans

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Joy

Dried lima beans on the left, soaked and cooked on the right

Dried lima beans on the left, soaked and cooked on the right

If you’re going to be eating beans, you’ve got to soak them first! There are lots of reasons to soak.

First off, beans are dirty. Washing them and soaking them mechanically cleans them. Next, beans are starchy and have oligosaccharides. People can’t break down these kinds of sugars. Instead the bacteria in the gut do the job, and they create gas while they’re at it. When you soak beans, the oligosaccharides leach into the water, making them more digestible. Beans also contain antinutrients like phytic acid, protease inhibitors, and toxins which are broken down by soaking.

Nutrients, on the other hand, do not leach out of the beans to the same extent, and are more accessible to your body when the beans are soaked, because they are more easily digested. After beans have been soaked, they require a shorter cook time, which also results in more of the protein staying in the beans when they are cooked. Shorter cook times have other benefits in the kitchen, too. Fast food! Cooked beans freeze well, so you can make large batches and store them for later if you wish.

Here’s how to prepare your beans

  1. Rinse about 2 cups of beans thoroughly, removing any stones that you find mixed in.
  2. Place the beans in a large glass bowl.
  3. Put about 8 cups of warm filtered water in the bowl.
  4. Add about 2 tbsp of lemon juice or whey (you can get whey by making yogurt and draining it).
  5. Cover with a cloth and let sit on the counter for 24 hours.
  6. Nasty white scum will form on the surface of the water, and the beans will expand. This is what’s supposed to happen. Skim off the scum, pour off the water, and rinse the beans.
  7. Cook the beans by simmering them in water or stock. White foam will form on top again, just skim it off. Different kinds of beans require different cook times. Do not boil or add salty or acidic seasonings until the beans are cooked (such as tomatoes in chili), since that will make the beans tough.

Note: On the GAPS diet, not all dried beans are allowed. Lima beans, navy beans, haricot beans, white beans, and lentils are allowed on the GAPS full diet.

Posted in Basics, Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, WAPF | Leave a comment

Apple Spice Cake Muffins

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Joy

The plan is to make the marionberry swirl cupcakes for Kelsy’s graduation party. But we’ve only got a half-pint of marionberry preserves left. I had to come up with something else for tonight! My picture could be better & I got pretty lazy cutting out my parchment liners, but they tasted great!

Apple Spice Cake Muffins

Ingredients

Apple Spice Cake Muffins

Apple Spice Cake Muffins

  • 6 chicken eggs or 5 duck eggs
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup ghee
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk
  • 3/4 cup + 1 Tbsp coconut flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
  • 1 cup apple butter
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions

  1. Beat eggs, salt, and vanilla until doubled in size and forming soft peaks.
  2. Add honey, ghee, and coconut milk and beat until well incorporated.
  3. With mixer running on its lowest setting, add coconut flour and cinnamon a spoonful at a time until all is incorporated.
  4. Beat for another few minutes, just to make sure there are no chunks of coconut flour.
  5. Refrigerate batter for at least 1 hour or up to 24.
  6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  7. Stir lemon juice into apple butter and mix thoroughly.
  8. Place batter in a medium bowl. Using a butter knife, cut the apple butter into the batter using long, straight strokes of the knife. This won’t result in an obvious swirl, but it will make a nice variety of flavor throughout the muffins.
  9. Bake 25-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

This post is part of Fat Tuesday.

Posted in Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, Recipes, sweets, WAPF | 3 Comments

Time is Money

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Joy

Our friend Angela at Salt of the Earth Urban Farm recently posted on Facebook about ways to trim fat from an already lean budget. She got a lot of really good responses, from thrifting to making your own laundry soap to offer to barter services for food at the farmer’s market. These are all things I’ve thought about doing, as our own budget has gotten leaner and leaner and leaner over the past few years while the cost of living and gone up and up and up.

But the problem with things that save money is that they very nearly always take more time! One of her commenters had a great idea to ask the farmers at the farmer’s market what kind of services they might barter for food. Perhaps the farmer needs his/her house painted and that only takes time! But time has a cost, too. That’s time I’m not working on my own house, playing with my kids, or doing something that makes me more money than I’m saving! So I have to weigh the pros and cons. How much time do I want to devote to saving money?

What's your time worth?

I have two hard and fast rules on taking my time to save money. First, I only spend significant time on money saving activities that I enjoy. In this way, I make my hobbies pay for themselves. I enjoy sewing, so I make a few pieces of clothing per year and do my own mending. I enjoy my chickens, so I keep chickens. I love hanging laundry on the line. On the flip side, baking my own bread might have saved me money back when we ate a lot of it, but I hate baking bread. So I never did. I don’t enjoy spending time in thrift stores, so I don’t shop in them often.

The second is an exception to the first. If I’m going to spend time on an activity that I don’t enjoy, it had better save me a significant amount of money. Our friend Jasie saves money by making her own laundry detergent. Making laundry detergent doesn’t really float my boat, though. Two years ago I bought the 50 lb box of Biokleen powdered detergent for $70 and it’s going to take us at least another 3 months to finish it off. That’s 27 months of laundry detergent at $2.60 per month. Even if we went through laundry detergent twice as fast, that’s still only $5 per month. Yep, not going to save enough money to make it worth it to me. Same goes for the 50 lbs of dishwasher detergent I bought at the same time.

A skirt I made for Joy

I made that skirt for $20, including the pattern! For the next one, all I'll have to pay for is fabric and notions!

What can we do in a financial crunch with a budget that won’t be trimmed any more and having run out of activities to save real money? When we are already so frugal, our only solution in a financial crunch is to make more money and sometimes that means charging people for our skills! I provide private tutoring for local high school and college students. Just one tutoring client a week is $50 for one hour of easy work that I enjoy and an hour for transportation; two at the same time is $80. Just for two hours of my time! I can’t save that much money anywhere in our already lean budget.

What about you? What trade offs have you made to save/make money?

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.

Posted in Basics, Challenges | 3 Comments

Sardine Salad Dressing

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Joy

I’ve got a sardine lover in the family… but the other kid is majorly squicked by them. I won’t pretend she loved this, but it wasn’t reviled.

Sardine Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Spinach Salad with Sardine Dressing

Spinach Salad with Sardine Dressing

  • 2 cans of sardines
  • 1/4 cup dried tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice (or to taste)
  • 2 tsp chopped fresh oregano
  • 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
  • salt
  • pepper

Directions

  1. Put your herbs, oil, and dried tomatoes in a bowl and allow it to soak until the tomatoes are softened.
  2. Put sardines (including about half of the water they are canned in) and the tomato mixture in your food processor or blender and blend.
  3. Taste and adjust salt, pepper, lemon juice and liquid balance as needed.
  4. Serve up on some fresh greens from the garden.
Posted in fish, Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, Recipes, Salads, WAPF, wild foods | 1 Comment

Slow Cooker Barbecue Short Ribs

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Kelsy

BBQ Short Ribs with Cauliflower & Greens from the Garden

BBQ Short Ribs with Cauliflower & Greens from the Garden

These ribs are extra easy because I make them in the slow cooker. Some people might think this is sacrilege – ribs ought to be smoked and then sauced. But I don’t have a smoker. And I’m kind of lazy. So. Slow cooker it is. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can also make them in a Dutch oven in the oven or on the stove top.

If you can, make these a day ahead and let it all sit in the fridge overnight to let the flavors marry. You won’t be sorry. It’s fab either way, but the leftovers are divine.

A note about ingredients. I used a small amount of wheat free, naturally fermented tamari (gluten free soy sauce). Soy is not GAPS legal in any form, but fermented soy is allowed on the Weston A Price (Nourishing Traditions) diet. I really love the umami flavor tamari imparts and none of us has had a problem with small amounts of it. If you are staying away from soy completely, you can substitute in fish sauce or more salt to taste.

Barbecue Short Ribs

serves 8
Ingredients

Browning the Ribs

Browning the Ribs

  • 8 lbs bone-in beef short ribs (we got a great deal buy buying a whole cow!)
  • cooking fat (tallow, duck fat, or ghee are good choices)
  • 3 large onions, chopped
  • 2 (16 oz) jars tomato sauce
  • 3 Tbsp honey
  • 3 Tbsp wheat-free tamari
  • 1.5 Tbsp dry mustard
  • 3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1.5 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp paprika or smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
  • 2 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In the Crock Pot with the Sauce

In the Crock Pot with the Sauce

  1. If using a Dutch oven, preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. In a deep skillet over medium high heat, melt the cooking fat. When it is shimmering, brown ribs in batches in a single layer. Add cooking fat as needed to keep a layer of fat in the bottom of the pan. As they are done, put the ribs in a 6 qt (or larger) slow cooker crock or Dutch oven.
  3. When all ribs are browned, add the onions to the skillet and fry until golden and fragrant. Again, add cooking fat as needed.
  4. Add remaining ingredients, stir and bring to a simmer. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Remember that the sauce will pull more spiciness from the pepper flakes as it cooks, so don’t add too much!
  5. Dump sauce and onions over the ribs in the crock or Dutch oven. Rather than stirring and risking dumping ribs everywhere, I used my tongs to pick up the ribs and move them around until they were all coated.
  6. If using Dutch oven, roast at 325 degrees F for 3 to 3.5 hours – until meat is falling off the bone.
  7. If using slow cooker, cook on High for 3 to 4 hours – until meat is falling off the bone.
  8. Remove ribs from sauce and put on plate. Pour sauce into a large saucepan and return the ribs to the slow cooker. Set to warm or low until ready to serve.
  9. Puree sauce with an immersion blender if desired. Simmer over medium low heat until slightly thickened.
  10. Serve with sauce over mashed potatoes, cauliflower mash, spaghetti squash, or zucchini noodles.

    11. This post is part of Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Traditional Tuesdays.

Posted in Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, meat, Recipes, WAPF | 6 Comments

Curvy is Hot, Skinny is Not

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Joy

It wasn’t the worst example of misguided body positivity I’ve seen, but CHEESESLAVE’s Bottoms Up To the Hourglass – Why Thin is Not Traditional post last night slapped me across the face and pissed me off. I want the real food community to do better. The message was clear, and it’s one that goes around under the guise of body-positivity on a regular basis:

Curvy is hot, skinny is not.

“We must, we must, we must increase our bust. It didn’t work for Margaret, but I tried it anyway. Yes, I still remember the moves. The depths of my desire for an hourglass figure can not be overstated. Even as a ballet-dancing girl growing up in our thin-obsessed culture, I knew what I liked: curves.

But that’s not the body I was given. I’m a carpenter’s dream: flat as a board. Growing up, I sat on the bus with books or bags on my lap, covering up the fact that there was space between my thighs, even though my knees were touching. The boys would snap other girls’ bra straps, but couldn’t find mine and laughed. Then there was the time I got in with the cool girls and they had me crank call the most popular boy in school. Trying to figure out who it was, you know what he asked? “What’s your bra size?” I hesitated. He guessed. The cool girl was a perfect 32 C.

It hasn’t stopped. I’ve had children innocently ask if I’m a grown-up, because I’m so flat-chested. Dinner table conversation with distant relatives has revolved around my being so skinny. Perfect strangers have even stopped the show to make my size an issue. A few weeks ago I was at a party talking with a friend and a random woman came and interrupted our conversation to comment on what I was eating and how skinny I was… referring to me in the third person.

Crystal clear in my mind is every single time someone has uttered the words “skinny bitch” or said “never trust a woman whose thighs don’t touch,” or proudly proclaimed “REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES!”

I’m Taking It Personally

Now, I know I’m not alone in this, y’all. Most people in our culture have grown up thinking their body is far from perfect. I realize that I get lots of privileges by being thin, and for every slight I’ve received based on my body size, my fat friends have experienced something on the order of a hundred more. If we want to change that for the curvy people among us, we’ve got to change that for everybody.

Bingo, Anyone?

Bingo, Anyone?

I tried to point that out and got told I was being defensive, was reading into a simple celebration of hourglass figures, and was engaged in shameless self-promotion, just fighting to try and bring someone down. Yes, I took it personally in light of my own issues. But you don’t have to be skinny to see the problem.

Body acceptance is not about finding a new ideal, especially not one that’s super-sexy and barely achievable for anybody. What I saw there was not a simple celebration.

The Adipositivity Project (NSFW) is how that’s done!

The Quotes

Here are the quotes I was reacting to, which piled up on similar things I’ve seen there (and elsewhere) in the past:

“Thin is not traditional”
“Until very recently, skinny was not attractive.”

And the final quote in the article from a song I still like and am NOT offended by when it plays on the radio because it actually is playful, fun, and the expression of one man’s attraction, rather than the advice of a prominent health blogger:

“Cosmo ain’t got nothin’
to do with my selection.
36-24-36?
Ha ha, only if she’s 5’3″

Does this sound accepting of all people to you? Or is it the celebration of one figure at the expense of another?

Ann Marie did another thing that really bothers me whenever I see it. She equated being skinny with being unhealthy, and brought her idea of what it is to look healthy back to what we eat.

“Do you really think it’s a coincidence that we have an ever-growing number of women who have lost their sex drive, don’t menstruate, can’t get pregnant, and/or can’t nurse their babies?”

And brought it back to making assumptions about what people eat:

“Because if you can’t eat the ice cream, what’s the dang point anyway?”

In the comments, responding to me when I said I’m skinny:

“It’s the low fat diet that is causing women to lose their hips and breasts”

Funny… that’s what they say about the fat people, too, right? That their size is the problem? That they’re not eating right? I recently read a blog about how fat people get all their ailments blamed on being fat. So they’ll go in to the doctor and have major problems go unnoticed because all the doctor can think to say is lose the weight. While extremes in size can be indicators of underlying health issues, they are not the cause, and they don’t always mean poor health.

Is Your Opinion is Only Valid if You’re Healthy?

I never claimed to be the picture of health. Actually, I’m dealing with some pretty sh*tty (literally!) health issues. But when I put it out there that the diet choices I make help me feel better (and make me thinner, by the way), I got told those things aren’t really my issue. If I was on the right probiotic I could eat anything. If the grains were properly prepared, I’d be fine with them. If I ate ice cream & traditional foods I’d have a super sexy hourglass figure, too, right?

Just because some people eat grains and sugar and do fine doesn’t mean it works for me. It’s my body, I’m the expert on my experience of living in it. The same is true for you, whatever your size, whatever you eat.

It’s pretty obvious that I’m all about traditional foods, grain-free & sugar free living, GAPS principles, and the like. I think this way of eating can help a lot of people resolve many health problems and feel better, while being more environmentally responsible. Even so, I agree with Ann Marie that eating this way to try and get skinny is generally a terrible idea.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Not everyone will benefit from eating the way we do, and not everyone who might benefit physically is in the emotional place to do it. I just want us all to get away from the idea that body size and shape are the measure of a lifestyle’s success. There are so many factors that go into our size and shape… genetics, personal history, emotions, health conditions… diet and exercise are only a small part of that puzzle. Our size may change with lifestyle changes, but most of us aren’t going to end up with the perfect body of our dreams no matter what we do.

So here it is: I believe in body acceptance for every body. A smokin’ hot hourglass figure? A super lean, tall model? A muscular athlete? Really fat? Pear bottomed? Apple bellied? Stretch marks? Flabby skin? Skin and bones? Healthy or not, conventionally attractive or not, these are the bodies we are living in. Until we celebrate them, no – LOVE them, we’ll be at war with them.

Being at war with our bodies is no way to get healthy or feel good! I want to see our real food movement embrace all people, regardless of where we are in our journeys, no matter what we look like, or what health issues we are dealing with.

This post is part of Freaky Friday, Monday Mania.

Posted in Basics, Challenges, Emotional Health, friends, Physical Health, WAPF | Tagged , | 117 Comments

Fish Soup Our Kids Love

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Joy

Fish Soup with Cumin

Fish Soup with Cumin

Lately I’ve been getting pretty frustrated with trying to feed my kids. They’ve been avoiding their broth! When we first went on GAPS over a year ago they agreed to eat the soup and did grow to like it. But now that they are on the Full GAPS diet and doing fine, it’s easy for us to let the stock slide. The less they eat of it, the less they want. I can always get them to eat it by including tomatoes, but with Jupiter’s joint issues I don’t like to feed him nightshades all the time even though he seems to tolerate them pretty well. We’ve also been struggling with keeping quick options on hand and ready to go, since both Kelsy and I are working full time now.

So this soup was a happy accident! It was really quick to make, and the kids ate it up! I didn’t take pictures last night, but I made myself a similar soup this morning and that’s what you’re seeing here.

Fish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dice the onion and put it in the pot with a bit of stock, cumin, and salt over medium heat.
  2. Chop your carrots and add them and the rest of your stock to the pot when the onion starts to turn translucent.
  3. When the carrots start to get tender, put your fish in the soup. It’s fine if it is frozen when it goes in the soup, just expect to give it a little more time.
  4. Cover and simmer until the fish is flaky and opaque.
  5. Salt and season further to taste.

Variations

  • Use other vegetables. I used broccoli today.
  • Stir in coconut milk and lime juice when it is cooked.

This post is part of Freaky Friday, Sunday Soup Night, Allergy Free Wednesday.

Posted in fish, Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, Intro Stage 2, Intro Stage 3, Intro Stage 4, Intro Stage 5, Intro Stage 6, Kids, Recipes, Soup, WAPF, wild foods | 4 Comments

Homemade Chapstick vs. Hamburger Fat

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Kodiak

The wax is melted.

The wax is melted.

Kodiak is our 13 year old daughter, and she’s going to start guest blogging when the mood strikes her! We hope you enjoy her first post:

I started thinking about chapstick when I ate a hamburger and got tallow on my lips. It made my lips feel so soft. (But I wouldn’t want to walk around with a bunch of tallow in my pocket…)

This made enough for 3 tubes of chapstick.

This made enough for 3 tubes of chapstick.

The reason we don’t use other chapstick that you get at the store is because it has a bunch of artificial flavoring and coloring. (Chemicals!) I made some homemade chapstick and it is really simple and really easy! I modified the lip balm recipe from Frugally Sustainable to use stuff that we have at home.

Homemade Chapstick

Ingredients in the pot

Ingredients in the pot

Ingredients

  • 2 teaspoons beeswax (grated or chopped into little pieces)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons coconut oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2-3 drops peppermint oil (the kind safe for eating!)



I used old (gluten-free) chapstick tubes. A little (lead-free) tin would be better than plastic.

I used old (gluten-free) chapstick tubes. A little (lead-free) tin would be better than plastic.

Directions

  1. Put your bees wax, coconut oil, and olive oil in a small pot on low heat and stir.
  2. Once it has all melted, remove from heat and put 2 or 3 drops of peppermint oil in and stir some more.
  3. Next pour it into a tin or a chapstick tube with a funnel and let it cool.
  4. When it’s done cooling, apply to lips.

Shared on Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Make Your Own Monday.

Posted in Basics | 6 Comments

Poached Eggs & Kale in Stock

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Joy

An easy GAPS breakfast

An easy GAPS breakfast

Lately, my body has really been telling me to stick to early GAPS intro.

This morning I felt for eggs, but the idea of fried eggs didn’t seem appealing. I ate a lot of meat yesterday and didn’t feel like having it in soup, but I knew stock wouldn’t be substantial enough to fill me up. We finally pulled up the rest of our bolting kale yesterday, so there was some of that in the fridge. We also had an avocado that was almost too ripe. Spending much time cooking was out of the question.

Here’s the very satisfying breakfast I came up with:

Poached Eggs & Kale in Stock

Ingredients

Stock Poached Eggs with Avocado & Kale

Stock Poached Eggs with Avocado & Kale

Directions

  1. Remove the stems of the kale and shred the leaves.
  2. Add the stock and kale leaves to a small pot and bring to a slow simmer.
  3. Crack your eggs and (gently!) drop them into the stock.
  4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
  5. Cover and simmer until the desired degree of doneness. I like my egg yolks mostly cooked through, so I let it simmer for almost 10 minutes.
  6. Dish up, and let cool slightly before adding a splash of fermented veggie liquid.
  7. Scoop curls of avocado onto the soup. (I used a 1/2 tsp measure like a melon baller for this effect. Slices would be fine, obviously!)

This post is part of The Weekend Gourmet, Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesdays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, Sunday Soup Night.

Posted in Full Diet, GAPS, Gluten-Free, Intro Stage 2, Intro Stage 3, Intro Stage 4, Intro Stage 5, Intro Stage 6, Recipes, WAPF | 4 Comments