Well, we’ve hit an eighty year record for snowfall here in our state!  It’s still coming down and there’s more called for in the beginning of the week. Dh doesn’t have work today, and it’s so nice to have him home in the middle of the week with us.  I keep feeling like it’s Friday today.  We’re all staying warm and snug inside – we’ve had so much snow that everyone stayed inside until after lunch.  Now they’re going out to build an igloo.   When everyone is inside all day, it’s a different feeling than the daily busyness; it’s more relaxed and peaceful.

Usually Sundays are my prep days and when I post my weekly menu, I also post my food prep plans for the day/week.  I’ve been busy in the kitchen today doing a little of this and a little of that. I can’t say I’m doing more today than usual, but maybe because of the snowed in feeling, I feel like I am! 🙂

I made a recipe for lunch that’s getting mixed reviews from the kids – peanut soup.  I sauteed a 3 large onions and a head garlic in lots of coconut oil, stirred in arrowroot powder, than added a can coconut milk, lots of chicken stock, 2 jars of organic chunky peanut butter (not sweetened), and spices.  I very loosely based it on a Joy of Cooking recipe, and used the peanut butter in the proportions they recommended, though it seemed like a lot to me.  It’s very tasty, but a little too peanut buttery – I’ll cut the peanut butter by half next time and I think it will be perfect.

The bulk ferments I started last week are ready now and are really good.  That was the first time I prepared ferments in such large quantities – usually I make my ferments a gallon at a time (I realize for many people a gallon would be preparing in bulk :)) but this time I used two five gallon buckets (food grade).  Something I like about lacto fermenting is how extremely easy it is; my ferments are whatever I feel like throwing together that day.  I made one bucket of cortido (Latin American sauerkraut): I used 4 or 5 very large heads of napa, 4 large daikon (each about 18 inches long), 22 regular sized carrots, 3 huge Spanish onions, and 1/2 gallon of lacto fermented purple sauerkraut (just red cabbage) to add some color and hasten the fermenting process along.  I planned to add garlic and fresh ginger but dd washed the food processor before I had a chance to chop them up, and I didn’t feel like taking it back out to add it.  🙂 I’ve never used napa before – usually I use cabbage – but cabbage takes so long to be ready and I thought this would work faster.  It did.  And even before it’s soft, it still tastes great – it has a nice crunch instead of the rubbery and squeaky feeling of not quite ready cabbage.

The other bucket is a large batch of pickled green beans. I needed to clear some freezer space so I used up 2 or 3 five pound bags of organic green beans that were taking up room.  Last time I made these I was very happy with the flavor but not the consistency; I wanted them to be crisp but they weren’t.  I thought I might have left them to ferment too long and this time I planned to refrigerate them sooner.  No luck.  It wasn’t until 2 days after I started the green beans that I remembered that I needed a source of tannic acid.  The only thing I could remember being good for this was grape leaves (don’t have any), oak leaves (don’t have any), and strawberry leaves (my plants are dormant right now).   When the summer comes around I’ll be sure to add it to keep them crispy.

I have four or five heads of cabbage that I’m planning to do something with today – I think I’ll start a batch of curried sauerkraut – it’s just cabbage, carrots, onions, and curry.  I’ll use a five gallon bucket for that, too!   If I make it now it will be ready when the napa cortido is finished.  Sauerkraut always takes longer than anything else so I like to make it with plenty of lead time.

Dh is using the juice from the ferments as as called for in the introductory GAPS diet and will soon be including larger amounts of the fermented vegetables themselves, which is one reason I’m making larger than usual quantities.  I didn’t want to run out.  🙂  And with this cold weather, it’s not like they need to be refrigerated, so I’m keeping them in an unheated room in the basement once they’re finished.

Yesterday I did a massive defrosting of our full size freezer.  It is so old and really needs to be replaced; the frost builds up super fast.  I filled a five gallon bucket with frost and ice that I cleared, and then there were another couple of gallons after that.  That takes up a lot of space!  It’s nice to have it done so I can see what we actually have in there – the frost is so bad that it ices things in and covers it up so it’s impossible to see what’s there.  Now that it’s done I see that my supposedly packed freezer is really not very full at all.

Today for the first time we’re making fish stock.  I’ve thought of doing this before and even gotten fish heads for it, but it just didn’t appeal to me so I never did.  Dh wants to have some, though, because he’s getting a little tired of chicken broth (staple in the introductory phase of GAPS) and wants some variety. I use chicken broth for everything and assuming the fish broth is tasty, will have to think how to integrate this.  He’ll eat it as it is, though, so it certainly won’t go to waste.

The four pounds of walnuts that I soaked and dried were ready to be put away yesterday but I left them in the dehydrator until today; it’s nice to get them done.  Along with the 12 cups of sliced almonds I did on Sunday night, we have enough soaked nuts prepared for the next couple of weeks.

Lastly, the beans for tonight’s dinner (baked beans and hot dogs) and tomorrow’s breakfast (breakfast tacos) are bubbling away on the stove.

And it’s only 2pm! 🙂

(This post is part of Tuesday Twister.)

Avivah

Rich and delicious, a properly made bone broth is packed with nutrition and  flavor.  This winter I’ve been using a fantastic addition to supercharge the nutritional value of our stock so that it has even more immune boosting power than a regular broth, and I’ve never seen anyone share about this great ingredient!

It’s an ingredient that is so inexpensive, so easy to add – no prepping – and so effective, that you’re going to want to add this to your pantry right away!  What is it?  Astragalus root.  Are you scratching your head?

Astragalus has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for generations and is a real food that builds immunity.  It looks kind of like a small wooden tongue depressor when you buy the slices.  You can find it at your local health food store or buy it online (I got mine here – scroll down page to see it).  In the pound of astragalus root slices that I bought for $10 there are probably a couple hundred slices.

To use it, you simply pop a few slices into your pot along with the onions, garlic, and any other vegetables you’re adding to your stock.  Since it’s a woody root and doesn’t become soft and delicious with cooking, you’ll simply remove it along with the bones before you serve it.  So simple!

Since I use our bone broths as the basis for any stew or soup I make, cook grains with it, and drink it, it’s a foundation of my cooking.  Using astragalus is an easy way to supercharge your broth to help keep you healthy this winter!

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)

Avivah

After months of waiting, we finally got the documentary Food, Inc from the library!  Wow, was this a powerful program, and I already was familiar with most of the ideas and information in it.  Seriously, you absolutely must run to your library and put this on hold.  The kids liked it so much they asked if they could watch it a second time (which they did today), and dh said after watching it that it impressed on him the significance of  the food choices we make, not just as individuals but for society.

Food, Inc. covered a lot of ground in 90 minutes – industrial chicken/beef/hog production, e coli and salmonella contaminations and their origination in the contained animal feedlot operations,  seed patents, poorly paid workers, the danger of mega corporations controlling our food and seed supply, and sustainable alternatives.

The main message that I walked away from this program with, was to recognize that every single person has some power to effect a change in our industrial food system.  The only positive thing which you can say about it is that the food is cheap, which isn’t an insignificant point since cost is a very real concern for many of us.  But when one looks at the overall picture, you see that the food that we think is so inexpensive actually has a much higher cost that we don’t see when we choose to buy a product.  This program pulls back the veil so we get a glimpse of things that go on behind the scenes, facts that can help us make choices with a better educated perspective.

What I’ve generally found in the past is that I’ve felt powerless and discouraged when I looked at the multinational corporations that control our food supply and felt like whatever I bought or didn’t buy really didn’t make a difference.  So what was most valuable for me in watching Food, Inc. was to hear a CEO of a major organic company say that while consumers think they have to take what industry provides for them and have no power, it’s actually exactly the opposite.  It’s the consumers demanding something else that will bring about change.

We don’t have to be advocates fighting the battle on Capitol Hill to make a difference.  Just choosing to buy the better product (even if it’s a bit more expensive) or letting the owners/managers know what we’d like to see is sending a message.  Since watching this a couple of days ago I’ve contacted two local kosher butchers and let them know I’d like to see them carrying grass fed meat (and one said he is planning to have some in stock for the first time in the next few days – I am soooo excited!!), and plan to share a suggestion with the local kosher supermarket that they do the same (I’ll include ordering info and possible sources for them).

We really do vote with our food dollars.  As it said in Food, Inc., every time we scan something at the checkout, we’re voting for the kind of food we want to see.  When you’re on a limited budget, as we are, sometimes we may to forced to make a choice of quality over quantity, and sometimes we don’t have even that luxury.

It’s easy to say something like cut out all the processed food to make room in the budget for organics, etc, but that presumes that there are expensive processed foods to be cut out in the first place!  I have a set budget to work within ($600 monthly for 11 people) and I’ve been able to feed our family healthfully and amply on that sum.  I’ve been continually making nutritional upgrades to our way of eating over the last few years, and every one of them costs more than the previous option I’m leaving behind!   So while I want to encourage everyone to be conscious that the choices you make when you shop really matter, I also believe that there’s no room for personal guilt if you’re doing the best you can and you find yourself limited by what you can do and what you want to do.

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)

Avivah