Our Backyard Homestead

Meatza Pizza Pie

Last week I had some extra kids staying with me and had a bit of a panic when I realized that I was all out of our "normal" lunch options, ie nitrate free organic hot dogs.  I had some already cooked ground beef in the freezer and started brainstorming on what I could do with it.  The result was a pizza-ish creation.  My kids wanted to try it again, but this time with more pizza like toppings.  The second attempt was better, but still somewhat lacking. 

As they say, the third time is the charm!  Last night I tweaked the spices and we had the closest thing to pizza that we have had since going grain free.  There are several grain free crust recipes out there, but I don't think any of us missed the crust a bit.  I like that this is quick and easy to throw together and I only dirtied one pan!!

We have been flirting with adding some dairy back in to the diet, but it appears that, for now, it should continue to be on a very limited basis.  A little cheese to make this yummy dinner was worth making the exception.  The kids came up with the name of the recipe.  I added the "pie" since the first time I made it, I baked it in my pie pan.  I discovered that my cast iron pan is perfect to make it a one dish meal, so if you have pan that can go from stovetop to oven, give it a try and enjoy a dish or five less to wash.

Meatza Pizza Pie

• 1.5 pounds lean hamburger (preferable to use grassfed beef)
• 7 ounce jar tomato paste (see note)
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp garlic powder*
• 2 tsp onion powder*
• 1 tsp salt
• pepper to taste

Toppings:

• nitrate free pepperoni
• sautéed onion
• sautéed red bell pepper
• sliced black olives
• grated cheese (I used Kerrygold Dubliner cheese and it was an excellent alternative to mozzarella)

To go with the one pan method, sauté red bell pepper and onion in a little coconut oil until soft.  Transfer to a bowl and then brown hamburger meat.  Turn burner off, but continue to prepare on the warm burner to keep it hot.  If using grass fed beef, there should be no need to drain the meat because there is very little fat.  If there is excessive fat, you would want to drain off.  Add the spices to the meat and mix well.  Stir in tomato paste.  I used about 1 tbsp of water to get all of the paste out of the jar and thin it slightly.

Press meat into bottom of pan or transfer to pie plate to form the crust.  Add desired toppings and bake at 400℉ until cheese is beginning to brown, 10-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

*Anyone avoiding starches should be careful in consideration of these two additions.  They are a source of starch, but seem to be tolerated in our household.

About the tomato paste, I have started using jarred tomato products after reading more and more about the effects of BPA.  Canned tomatoes are known source of BPA exposure:

Beyond baby bottles, BPA is widely used in the linings of food and beverage cans. In many cases, particularly where the can’s contents are acidic or corrosive, as with tomato sauce or soda, researchers have found that the BPA leaches out of the can lining and into the food…and into the bodies of people who consume the products. In fact, BPA can be found in the bodies of some 90 percent of Americans.

You can read more about BPA in this article where I found the above quote.  The more I learn about BPA, the more angry it makes me.  When I found a jarred option for tomato products, I was glad to have the option of using tomato sauces again.  

 

The Incredible Egg

I was a business major in college and adored my marketing classes.  For many years, I believed that the organic label on food was nothing more than a clever marketing scheme to get people to part with a few extra bucks to "feel" like they were making healthier choices.  I have since learned so much about our food supply and am certain that organic, whole food choices are worth every penny.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so I thought I would post a little evidence in the matter.  The above picture is of eggs from two different sources.  The light yellow yolks are organic eggs from the grocery store.  The dark, orange yolks are what eggs should look like when a chicken is being cared for in the way they were intended to live.  Grocery store eggs, even organics, are from chickens kept indoors their entire lifetime.  Chickens were meant to be outdoors and roam for bugs and other little creatures.  Our chickens have even eaten small snakes they have found in the yard!

Right now, we are not getting enough eggs from our chickens to feed our family so I had to scout out a local co-op so that I could buy eggs from free ranging chickens.  As the picture clearly shows, the effort is well worth it!

If you have not already seen the movie Food, Inc. I highly recommend making the time to watch! 

Pumpkin Pie Custard, It's what's for Breakfast

Pumpkin contains starch, though of the winter squash family, appears to be lowest in starch content.  We have not eaten much of it in the past few months as we have tried to be quite strict on a no starch diet.  However, after 2.5 months of very careful avoidance, we are cautiously attempting small trials.  With four egg yolks to use from our delicious pot pie last night, I got to wondering about making a custard type breakfast.  Pumpkin custard just sounded like it would be yummy. 

Of all of the meals that have required reinventing, breakfast has been the easiest and yet the hardest.  Eggs.every.day is not my love.  While we are getting creative in how to eat them, I grew up on cereal, and I miss variety at breakfast.  I don't want to use almond flour on too regular of a basis (because of high ratio of omega 6s) and am not sure how well coconut flour is being tolerated, so muffins, pancakes and the like are not something we do regularly.

This morning's custard was just the variety we needed.  Eggs very much in disguise and with delicious pumpkin.  Perfection!  I made it with the yolks because they needed to be used, in the future, I will attempt with 4 whole eggs.

Pumpkin Pie Custard

• 1  1/4 cup pumpkin
• 3/4 cup coconut milk, canned
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 freshly ground nutmeg (so worth the effort of freshly grinding!)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract

Mix pumpkin and spices.  Mix in coconut milk, syrup, vanilla and almond extract.  Whisk eggs in separate bowl and mix well with pumpkin mixture.

Place 6 ramekins/custard cups in large Pyrex pan.  Fill cups with custard mix. 

Add very hot water to larger Pyrex pan, filling about 2 inches or to the same height as the custard.  I waited to add the water until I had my pan in the oven.  I used my electric kettle to fill with almost boiling water.

Bake at 325 for 45-60 minutes until firm and a knife inserted comes out clean.  Cool and enjoy hot or cold!

On a somewhat related note, I just have to mention how impressed I was to have purchased some new Pyrex cups and discover that they are still made in America!  Not often do I find a product stamped "Made in USA" and it makes me thrilled to support Pyrex!  I have since checked every Pyrex item that I own and it appears that every last thing is made in the USA.  As much as I would love to go out and find some cute ramekins, I think I will stick with my American made Pyrex cups.

 

 

Chicken pot pie - Starch free style

In honor of Pi day yesterday, we ate all things pie.  We started with one of my old childhood favorites, Impossible Pie.  While a fun way to start the day, this recipe will require some more tweaking to convert it successfully into our grain-free, starch-free lifestyle.  I will be sure to share if we have a success.

We decided that dinner should be chicken pot pie, though I had no idea how we would accomplish this to fit within our dietary needs.  After checking out a few Paleo recipes, I took inspiration from a few and guessed a bit as to how we could make it without starch.  Our results were lovely and enjoyed by the entire family!  I used veggies that I had on hand and was a little afraid that the Swiss chard might be too strong, but it was a wonderful addition.

Starch Free Chicken Pot Pie

Filling:

• 3 carrots, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 1.5 cups sliced mushrooms
• 1 onion chopped
• 4 cups chopped Swiss chard, stems included
• 2 cups cooked chicken
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp. dried thyme
• 3 tbsp. coconut oil
• 3 cups broth
• 2 tbsp. coconut flour
• salt and pepper to taste

Crust:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 4 egg whites
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2-1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Instructions:

Saute all veggies in coconut oil, minus chard leaves.  If using chard stems (which I highly recommend) add stems with other veggies.  Saute until soft, 10-15 minutes.  Add chard leaves and garlic, saute for additional 5 minutes, covered but stirring often to keep garlic from burning.  Add thyme, salt and pepper.  Stir and add broth, leaving about 1/2 cup to mix with coconut flour.  Simmer until broth is hot.  Mix remaining broth and coconut flour well and slowly add to pan, stirring after every addition.  Simmer until broth reduces, was still a bit runny.

Pastry Topping:

While broth is simmering, mix up the topping.  In a bowl, mix coconut oil, almond flour, soda and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites and vinegar.  Whisk egg whites mix into flour mix.

Transfer filling to oven safe pan, or use oven safe pan to saute in like I did.  Spoon topping gently on top in small batches and then spread to cover the top. 

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes until topping is golden brown. 

Notes:

• Be sure to save the extremely nutritious egg yolks for use in another recipe.
• If starches are safe, using arrowroot or some other form of starch would help the filling be a little thicker/creamier.  The coconut flour worked and the taste was great, but there are some things that starch free cooking just can't recreate to perfection.
• We served with green beans sauteed in bacon fat.  Add in a few cloves of minced garlic in the last few minutes of cooking for a delicious touch.  Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt and enjoy!

 

 

An Amazing Story; How your diet impacts your health

A few weeks ago, I came across the TED video of a physician that was nearly crippled by multiple sclerosis.  She had the very best medical care and was taking the latest and greatest drugs, yet her health was continuing to rapidly decline.  Whether you suffer from migraines or much more serious health problems, I urge you to make the 18 minutes to watch her inspiring story and the very simply laid out diet that she recommends.

Our family has been trending much closer toward the diet she recommends over the past year and we have seen a huge change in health.  I was having frequent migraines but since going wheat free, have had one!  I believe that the one that I had was directly related to a wheat cheat.  I also had frequent acid reflux for as long as I remember.  Since changing our diet, it is gone.  I have energy levels that I hadn't seen since I was in college.  Chronic pain, GONE!  The list is long of improvements, and that is only me.  My child that has inspired every baby step away from the Standard American Diet that we have taken is a entirely new child! 

What kind of Juicer

A very common question I get is what kind of juicer we have.  After much research, I went with a Breville, but right now am not loving it.  When life is a little less busy next week, I need to call them to see what is wrong because it is leaking all over the place.  I don't think that is right for a six month old juicer.

It has always done a great job with things such as carrots and celery, but greens required tightly packing and even then, the results are less than fantastic.  Overall, the Breville is a good choice, though I would not choose the more expensive model again.  I have used the more basic model and I felt it honestly worked better than mine.  I choose this one because I wanted less plastic and larger capacity.  I also liked that it had a wide variety of speeds.

I am hoping to be able to update with a positive report on the customer service from Breville and love my juicer again.  In the meantime, if anyone knows of an industrial juicer option, please leave me a comment!

Why Green Juice?

I don't know about other families, but I am certain it would not be possible to get my family to eat this much produce in one day.  It might seem like a deceptively small amount in the the above picture, so I added a dinner plate in the mix to give a little perspective.

It's possible that we might eat a dinner plate worth of carrots, but we would be pretty sick of them by the end of the day.

What about a big bunch of purple kale?  There is zero chance that I am going to get my kids to eat that, especially raw. 

About the only thing that would be no problem to have disappear in the course of the day would be this plate of apples, minus the lemon and lime.

We were doing well with making green smoothies, but when I attempted to improve the veggie to fruit ratio, the taste of greens such as kale, swiss chard and celery required too much fruit to allow for a truly power packed option.  When I finally broke down and bought a juicer, I was shocked by how "sweet" the greens are all on their own.  A little lemon and lime will cover a multitude of greens!  Because I am juicing for the kids, I also add a minimum amount of green apple and carrot to add some sweetness.  Adults juicing to loose weight or for health reasons will want to consider the sugar and carbs that juicing fruit adds.

I don't follow any recipes for our juice.  I make about 1 gallon of juice a few times a week.  I wish that I had time to make it daily, but making that much requires at least an hour.  If I were just making a single batch for myself, it would be a much faster process.

A batch of juice typically contains curly kale, purple or green, lacinato kale, cilantro, celery, cucumber, swiss chard, carrots, lemon, lime, zucchini, apple, and romaine lettuce.  If I can't find any good kale, I will sometimes use spinach, but of all the greens, I find that my juicer handles it poorly.  In the above pictured batch, I also included a beet and the greens from a few beets.  I also like to sneak in parsley.

I was thrilled to make a batch this weekend that contained cilantro, swiss chard, lettuce and kale all from my garden!  If the evil rabbits would leave my kale alone, I would have plenty right now, but sadly, there were only a few small pieces that I could add.  Thankfully, it seems the more we harvest the swiss chard, the more it grows like crazy!  This time I got brave and even added in the stems.  I was really afraid that the flavor would be too strong to overcome, but the whole family drank it with no complaints.

I cannot begin to describe the amount of energy I have or how great I feel on the days that we have fresh green juice.  If I go for more than a few days without it, I seriously start to crave it!  I held out on buying a juicer for a long time because I just didn't think I would stick with it.  We have been juicing since August and I can't imagine giving it up!

A half gallon jar of the above pictured veggies.  This is what was left after the family each had a glass and the remainder of the other half gallon was stored in another container.  Usually the carrot is mixed in with everything else, but the carrot juice is so pretty, I wanted to be able to take a picture of it.  A gallon lasts no more than 24-48 hours at our house.

 

The Unhealthy Truth

My goal this week is to write about some of the books and documentaries that have changed the way I think about food.  Most of them have made such a big impact, that I haven't been sure how to concentrate my words into a focused review.  I have decided it is time that I must share my favorite resources beyond my circle of Facebook friends that likely have me set to ignore after all of my food related posting!

The week we embarked upon our elimination diet, we ran to the library with 15 minutes to spare before closing and my daughter and I scooped every elimination diet book off the shelf.  One of the books looked very interesting, but I didn't have time to read it.  As I was returning books, I was about to drop The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien into the slot, but had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to hang onto it and read it.  I came home that evening and read it nearly cover to cover. 

Finally, I had possible answers and evidence for the conclusions that I had already drawn based on the positive results of our elimination diet.  I had read Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, as well as a few others.  I had watched numerous food documentaries including Food, Inc. which still ranks as one of the best places to start if you are new to the world of questioning the wisdom of the Standard American Diet.  The Unhealthy Truth rocked my world!  There was so much information in that book, and finally, I had answers for why my kids were struggling to eat what I thought were the same foods that I ate as a child.  Except there is one problem, the foods we are eating today look nothing like the food we grew up on.  There are additives, preservatives, sugars and genetically modified foods that have never been proven safe for humans.

While the book is aimed at parents, I suggest that every person that eats should read this book.  I could go on and on with a detailed review of the book, but there are many, much more able than I, that have posted informative reviews on Amazon (linked above).  In my opinion, the very best way to interest you in the book is to let the author speak for herself.  Take the 20 minutes and watch her speech; your health is at stake!

What then, can we eat?

A recurring question this past month has been related to what can we eat??  Well, to answer that question, I thought I would continue to share some of our meals along the way.  There is plenty of yummy food to eat, but in an era where whole grains reign as king on the "official" food pyramid, our new diet does seem a bit radical. 

We are not a family that is big on fish, but not wanting to rely on grass fed beef alone, I am working to add variety to the menu.  One of my favorite cookbooks prior to our going gluten free was What the Bible has to Say about Healthy Living Cookbook.  There are still many recipes that we can use or adapt now that we are grain free and one of our favorites is Maple Almond Salmon.  As a matter of fact, this recipe is the ONLY one that has been a success in getting the entire family to eat fish for dinner.  It is very important in choosing salmon to be sure that you look for "wild caught" fish only.  Farmed salmon does not have the same nutritional benefit as wild.  It might be cheaper, but cheap food costs you much more in the long run with the silent damage it is doing to your health.

For sides, I served caramelized onions.  I simply cooked nearly 3 pounds of onions in a little butter for close to an hour.  After the onions cooked on medium high heat for around 20 minutes, I reduced the heat and added about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar.  I continued simmer until dinner was ready.  The most difficult part of the onions was chopping that many!!

We also had roasted asparagus and garden fresh salad picked just minutes before dinner.  An easy homemade balsamic vinaigrette was delicious.  I have been dependent upon processed foods such as salad dressing for so long, it continues to amaze me how simple, delicious and liberating it can be to kick the box, can or package to the curb.

Chia, the mighty seed

Have you heard of chia beyond the Ch Ch Chia Pet?  Evidently the Aztecs were on to something with this little wonder.  It was so valuable in their culture that it was even used as currency.  One serving (1 TBSP) of this tiny seed contains 20% of the recommended daily amount of dietary fiber.  Chia is the richest plant source of Omega 3s, it is high in calcium, magnesium and much more. 

We have been experimenting with incorporating it into our diets and the results are impressive.  I originally ordered some because I had read that it was useful in baking bread.  We actually started using it as an egg replacement after we began our elimination diet and were no longer eating bread or eggs.  In recent weeks we have been testing it as "chia fresca" or a chia drink with the seeds soaked in water and a bit of juice for at least 10 minutes.  The seeds form a gel and it takes a bit to get used to drinking it, but the entire family is now asking for their chia drink!  I have also incorporated into smoothies, baking and as previously posted, used it quite successfully as egg replacement for waffles.

Now for my story of how I know the chia and the dietary changes we have made are helping.  On Monday morning, I woke up at 3:30 a.m.   Wide awake, determined to fall back asleep.  However, something was making me itch, I thought it was a stray hair, stealthily making me miserable.  When I finally opted to get out of bed at about 4:15, one look in the mirror, revealed the source of my early morning.  I was covered in a red rash and itching from head to toe.  I ended up with a nice morning for a leisurely quiet time and for checking some items off of the to-do list before the kids were up.  I enjoyed a cup of coffee and a glass of chia fresca.

Our day was filled with activity outside of the home and off we went at 10:30 a.m.  When their school day finished up at 5:00 p.m., my son begged to go to the soccer game of all of his friends.  I had been up since 3:30 and my only caffeine of the day was metabolized by 8:00 a.m., oh and let's not forget that I was still itching from head to toe.  But, he really wanted to go and since our schedule had not allowed for him to play on the team, I decided we could make it.  Now, prior to our elimination diet there is not a chance that I would have had the energy to say yes! 

Not only did we have a great time at the game, but he and I then went to Whole Foods for dinner and to grab a few groceries.  I didn't return home until after 8:30 p.m. and still had enough energy to get the groceries put away and finish a few items not yet crossed off of the day's to-do list.  This is so drastically different than how I have felt in the past decade that I am still shocked by the day. Now, if we can figure out what caused the hives...

I know that the diet has been the biggest factor in returning my energy levels to where they should be, but I believe that the addition of chia has also been a help.  I don't mean to make it into the wonder fix all remedy because it is not.  If I was still eating processed food, I am not sure how much benefit I would see, but based on all that I have recently read, I believe it is truly the superfood it is claimed to be.

In closing, there is a great story of an endurance experiment with chia.  You have to read about halfway through to get to the story of the group that decided to climb Mt. Wilson.  Half of the group ate nothing but chia during the 36 hour climb and the other half ate whatever they choose.  You can click here to read the outcome as well as lots of other info about the mighty chia.