Heart of Cooking

Sauerkraut

This week I had somewhat of a spontaneous “traditional foods cook day” for our family.  When I cook for clients as a personal chef, I call it a “cook day”, so this is where the term comes from.  It all came about when I decided to finally catch up on making sauerkraut and broth, both of which have been somewhat ignored since moving into our new house.

I also had to make tea for kombucha, our weekly yogurt and finish off packaging the soaked and dehydrated nuts I’d made over the weekend.  I had some time while Elijah slept so I got to work!

I have never made all my ferments and other traditional food items in this way – I usually just spread out making these type of foods over the week.  But it actually turned out really well and I got a lot done.

I ended up making the following:

• Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut with carrots and caraway seeds (followed recipe in Nourishing Traditions without the whey and added grated carrots)
• Chicken broth (let cook for almost 24 hours)
• Kombucha
• SCD/GAPS goat yogurt (we go through about 3-4 quarts of this a week so I make it about twice a week)
• Soaked and dehydrated sunflower seeds, almonds and walnuts

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I believe that almost anything is possible with a few ingredients:

• creativity and looking outside the box
• a few helpful kitchen tools
• amazing abundance of foods that the earth has given us

With these few ingredients, you can really come up with anything no matter how limited your diet is.  I really believe this.  Maybe it’s because the more limited my diet has become, the more I have discovered just how many ways there are to make pancakes, tortillas, noodles and other common food items.

Yes, I know, they are not the “same.”  But I tend to believe that different is good, no matter how crazy it sounds to make tortillas out of just eggs or noodles out of cabbage.

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Dairy Free Egg Nog

I feel like a little elf in a workshop, making treats and goodies for the holidays.  I have to say that even though I love to cook and bake, I have never made goody plates for friends for the holidays.  But since I’m working somewhat feverishly on the Holiday Menu Planner and the Just Desserts recipe e-book, I don’t know what else to do with all of the baked goods and candies I’m going to be testing and creating over the next week or so.  I’m really looking forward to making gifts out of the treats!

Dairy-Free Egg Nog (also rice and soy free)

Something I have always wanted to make is egg nog.  When I was a kid, we had milk delivered to our house from a milk company. It wasn’t raw but it tasted better than any milk at the grocery store.  During the holidays, we ordered the egg nog and it was the richest and yummiest egg nog ever.  I loved it.

I never tried making it, even after I gave up milk because it just seemed too complicated.  Plus, I have had to give up my fear of raw eggs.  I now know that it is safe and healthy to eat raw egg yolks, if you get the eggs from someone you trust who raises the chickens on pasture.

So, I decided to finally give it a go and made my first batch last night.  I used Baden’s idea to use coconut milk and adapted Wardeh’s recipe to create a dairy-free version.  The result was fabulous and I couldn’t believe how much it tasted like the real thing!  I also couldn’t believe that I used 2 tsp nutmeg to only 13 oz of coconut milk!  The basic ingredients are coconut milk, raw egg yolks, vanilla, and nutmeg and the complete recipe will be part of the Holiday Menu Planner and the Just Desserts recipe e-book.

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Gluten Free Clafoutis

This is my weekly roundup of my kitchen twisting as part of the Tuesday Twister Carnival at GNOWFGLINS.  For other real and delicious food posts, check out the twister here.

Because I was pretty busy, I only tried a couple of new recipes this week, but they were both yummy!

Apple Clafoutis

The first was this Apple Clafoutis that I made based on Kimi’s recipe at the Nourishing Gourmet.  I saw her Cherry version of this recipe over the summer and knew I had to try it.  It took me a while to get to it but inspiration struck over the weekend.

I used apples instead of cherries so that I could use seasonal fruit and it was really a delight.  I used her coconut version of this recipe which works perfectly for the GAPS diet.  I omitted the baking soda but for people not on GAPS, I am sure the baking soda would make it more fluffy than mine turned out.

If you use a bit less honey or other sweetener, I think that this would make a great pastry for breakfast, even though it is traditionally a dessert.

Homemade Yogurt Fruit Leather:

Since I have a dehydrator now, I feel like there is a whole world of foods that I can now make.  One of these is fruit leather which my son loves.

When I was looking through the recipe booklet for the dehydrator, it talked about making fruit leather out of fruit yogurt.  I thought this sounded great!

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Zucchini Pasta Noodles

It ’s been somewhat of a crazy busy week.  The main thing that threw my schedule off was that my computer crashed last Tuesday night.  My husband ran the anti-virus software on both of our computers Tuesday evening and when we woke up Wednesday, neither of our computers would boot up.

Long story short, my computer is running again thanks to my husband.  But it took some time to get programs reinstalled, etc.   We still don’t know what happened with the spyware…

I was planning on working Wednesday morning, but I couldn’t so…. I made chicken broth and yogurt instead.  It was kind of weird.  Usually I’d be a bit frantic, running around trying to figure out how to get my work done.  But I felt like the situation was beyond my control.  It was actually nice to get the chicken broth started from the chicken carcass and meat from the night before.  I also was glad to get the yogurt going since it takes a whole day to ferment in the dehydrator.

I actually have to attribute my mood and ability to deal with the stress to the GAPS diet.  I have to admit that by the end of Wednesday, I was very tired.  But for the most part, I know I dealt with this much better than I normally would before I went grain-free.

The other thing that kind of astonished me when I thought about my week is that I cooked a wonderful meal every night and was able to plan ahead for the next day even though I was super-busier than normal.  However, I didn’t take one picture this week of food.  I guess that was the thing that got dropped amongst the busy schedule.  (The picture of the zucchini pasta is an old picture).  Here is what we ended up having for dinner each night.

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It’s been another busy week in our kitchen. I feel somewhat obsessed, like I just can’t get enough of cooking, creating and trying out new recipes. I read about a recipe or want to make something that I would normally buy and it’s like a bookmark is created in my mind and a few days later I find myself making it.

However, I really feel like this obsession is actually a healthy one for me. Because I presently feel healthier than I have – physically, emotionally and mentally – than I have for a while. I feel as though the GAPS diet is like taking a chill pill for me. I really need to write a separate post about this because it’s a long story. But I will just say here that I am finding that being grain-free, starch-free and sugar-free is giving my mind, heart and body a much needed break and time to heal in a way that it just hasn’t had a chance to for many years.

Like I said last week, I’ve been in the kitchen a lot. I was actually in the kitchen all day Sunday this week except for a walk that I took with my husband and toddler. But it doesn’t really tire me out because I love it so much. It doesn’t even feel like work to me, until I get tired of doing the dishes.

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