real food thoughts to chew on, or sip on...

[ photo source]

Listening to my favorite news program today, Democracy Now! , I had the pleasure of hearing Amy Goodman interview the omnipresent Michal Pollan, who was recently on Oprah. I don't necessarily agree with his "mostly plants" dietary advice (many cultures have traditionally done beautifully with mostly animal products), but he is ultimately a political and social advocate for real food, and he is truly fighting the all-powerful industrial agricultural monstrosity that is attempting to control the food chain of the entire world. That sounds dramatic but only because it IS that bad. Pollan has literally had speeches he was set to give at universities cancelled because an industrial agricultural company told the university they would withdraw funding if they allowed him to speak.

I really respect this man for being so outspoken (and out-written!), for helping people regain vibrant health through awareness of what exactly is real food. My favorite thing Pollan said was in regards to the false labeling on foods such as the now defunct "Smart Choices" program: "We want an excuse to eat badly", and went on to explain that food manufacturers and industrial agriculture commodities owners are more then happy to find ways to promote these bad food choices average consumers make.

I always enjoy reading the latest Savuer magazine, and their Top 100 issue did not disappoint. Number 95 was the cookbook Nourishing Traditions, written, as you probably know, by the mother of the real food/traditional foods movement, Sally Fallon Morrel, who founded the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Also in the top 100, eggs from backyard chickens! I dream of doing this myself someday soon. For now I am happy to buy eggs from Sam Kedem, of Kedem Roses in Hastings,Minnesota. I have picked berries at his small, organic farm and my kids were graciously invited to chase the chickens and Guinea hens about as they foraged for bugs and ate apple peels (um, the chickens... my kids don't choose to eat bugs too often!).

I've read two interesting cookbooks recently, yes I read cookbooks for fun, as if I am reading a novel! The Lhasa Moon Cookbook was the only Tibetan cookbook I could find in the archives of my local library. The most interesting part of this book, to me, is the history of traditional Tibetan foodways. The author, Tsering Wangmo, is Tibetan, grew up living in exile, and she explains that until the Chinese government forced the Tibetan people into farming wheat (which she writes caused massive environmental degradation of the land in Tibet), they had lived as nomadic herders and subsisted on a diet of yak meat, yak milk, yak butter and cheese, and some small tubers. They ate almost no vegetables at all. A mainstay in their diet is yak butter tea, which sounds delicious, a recipe which can be found here.

The Eat Well, Feel Well Cookbook is a Specific Carbohydrate Diet cookbook that is grain-free, gluten-free, low-lactose and generally pretty "yum!" inducing! I'm not even following this diet, yet I have found all the recipes so far to be really good. It's not necessarily a low-carb cookbook, but the recipes are all made with real food, and no grains so I think anyone interested in traditional foods, primal or paleo eating, gluten-free cooking and just plain-old good health would find this book interesting.

What food news has caught your eye recently? What cookbooks are you loving?

Where to Buy Real Food in Minneapolis? Your Local Asain Market!

Looking for healthy snacks like toasted nori, specialty cooking tools like rice cookers, or simply frugally-priced real food staples? Look no further then your friendly neighborhood Asian grocer. In Minneapolis, United Noodles is the place to find inexpensive produce, everything sushi-oriented, exotic fruits like durian and green papaya, not to mention aisles of hello-kitty and Pokemon themed treats (that your kids will undoubtedly beg for).

For 20$ I came home with what you see above; bean sprouts, fresh mint, cilantro, galangal (similar to ginger), ginger root, sushi rice, lime, coconut palm sugar, an English cukeumber (which are seedless), two cute rice molds for making pretty lunches like this gal's, and my kids' favorite snack as of late, toasted nori. The toasted, flavored nori (check ingredients as some contain msg) is almost addictively tasty, which really is fine as it has few calories but lots of protien and trace minerals such as iodine.

On a totally un-food-related note, here is an adorable picture of Ms. Eliza playing dress-up with her big brother, Ari. She is wearing these beautiful, albiet very large Chinese silk pajamas!



This post is apart of the Nourishing Gourmet's Pennywise Platter and Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday.

Ceasar Salad-esque Dressing using Real Food Ingredients

We love Caesar salad dressing in our family, all our boys do especially. But I have yet to find a bottle of Caesar salad dressing at a store that uses healthy oils and other real food ingredients. Even organic/natural brands, such as Annie's Naturals, use cheap, highly processed oils like soybean oil and canola oil for their main ingredient. These cooking oils are relatively new to the human diet and really, let's face it, devoid of taste! For further information on these oils I would suggest reading this article by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon. It is definitely worth a shot at making your own fresh, healthy dressing if you enjoy a delicious salad.

Caesar-style Dressing Recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (use a bit more if dressing is too thick)
juice of 1 lemon or large lime
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmigiano Reggiano or aged Manchego cheese
2 anchovy fillets (preferably from a glass jar)
2 small cloves garlic, pressed or finely grated
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions for making Caesar-style Dressing:

1. Mix everything, except salt and pepper, in a food processor or blender for a minute or two. Adjust flavor to your liking by adding real sea salt, freshly ground pepper or more lemon/lime juice. Reserve dressing in the fridge until ready to dress your favorite salad, or up to 3 days.

Frugal shopping tip: check your local Greek market or Middle Eastern market for amazing deals on olive oil, I found a gallon of extra-virgin olive oil for 22$ at Bill's Imported Foods. Otherwise, you can also find good quality olive oil in bulk at your local co-op, it's generally 8$/lb here in the Twin Cities.

I am sharing this post with the Nourishing Gourmet's Pennywise Platter and with Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!

Fast, Cheap and Low Carb Breakfast

(photo credit)

Forget the drive-through dollar menu. Stay in the comfort of your own home (where it's warm and not covered in ice!) and make a nutritious, low-carb, and very yummy "dollar" breakfast. I eat the following breakfast (or this one) almost every weekday morning. It really doesn't get boring to me, and I know I'm giving myself the nourishment I need as a busy homemaker and nursing mother.

Spicy Scrambled Eggs with Cheese
serves 1 hungry mama

Ingredients:
3 Large eggs from happy, local chickens
1 T butter (preferably grass-fed)
2 T salsa or kimchi
1 ounce grass-fed cheddar cheese, shredded
real sea salt (I've been using maldon lately) and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a small, stainless steel saute pan over medium heat, crack eggs into butter and mix gently with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Turn heat to low, continue slowly stirring eggs and butter until they are cooked through but not at all crispy, add in shredded cheddar cheese and top with your favorite salsa or kimchi, along with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Nutritional Information:
According to FitDay, this meal is 444 calories, 4.5g carbs, 26.8g protein and 35g fat. If you are following a primal or paleo type diet (substitute coconut oil for butter if you are dairy-free) this is a good ratio of fats (72%), protein and carbs. Even if you aren't following any particular diet this is still a fabulous, filling breakfast!

Why is this a "dollar" breakfast? I buy local, organic eggs at my nearest food co-op for about $0.25 each, the entire jar of salsa or kimchi is usually less then 5$, and a Tbs of grass-fed butter (Pastureland is $6.00/lb at the Linden Hills Co-op here in Minneapolis) costs me around $0.18, and I used an inexpensive local cheddar. What a deal, breakfast on a budget and low-carb, too!

I am sharing this post with fellow real foodie, Wardeh's Tuesday Twister and Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesday!

Coconut Panna Cotta (recipe review) from Super Natural Cooking

Yeah, it was that good that this gem of a recipe deserves an entire post! I made the Coconut Panna Cotta with Berry Coulis from Super Natural Cooking, a lusciously illustrated vegetarian cookbook by Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks fame.

While I am certainly not a vegetarian, I enjoyed perusing this cookbook nonetheless. Each page is like staring at a fresh, edible piece of art! I really appreciated that the author does not shun what I believe to be good-for-you traditional fats like real butter, ghee and coconut milk. My main criticism of the book is the overall nutritional quality of the recipes, though each looks delicious, many of the recipes contain lots of starches, gluten-grains and too much sugar (albeit "natural" sugars such as maple syrup and agave, but they still affect your body just like regular sugar). For the recipe I made, I halved the sugar called for and still found it to be overly sweet. Yet the texture of the panna cotta, made with agar-agar rather then gelatin, turned out perfectly smooth and firm, and as you can see in my photo, the presentation is really pretty.

All in all I'd say this book is worth adding to your cookbook collection, so long as you add a nice grass-fed steak or perhaps some fresh salmon to the many veggie dishes found within its pages. Oh, and try the recipes with less sugar then called for.

What are your favorite recipes you've tried lately?

p.s. I'm sharing this post with Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!

Gluten-Free Minneapolis

(Gluten-free bread fresh from the ovens of Cooqi Bakery)

I live in such an awesome city for real food lovers. Minneapolis is filled to the brim with beautiful food co-ops, bustling farmer's markets, real fishmongers, an old-fashioned butcher shop specializing in pastured meats, the best cheese shop this side of the Mississippi, and a gluten-free bakery in seemingly every corner of the city.

I am going gluten-free [also mostly grain-free too, just to take things up a notch;)]in this new year and am constantly on the lookout for new gluten-free finds when I'm out gathering food. My #1 go-to spot for gluten-free baked goods is Madwoman Bakery. Many of the treats you'll find here are low-carb, and everything they make lists net carbs per serving. The Parmesan and almond flour flat-breads are perfect for making mini-pizzas, and are grain-free to boot. I also love their lemon-poppy seed tea cakes which are made using ghee, a traditional, nourishing fat.

I recently shopped at Cooqi Bakery, which is over the bridge in St. Paul. I tried a perfectly gooey chocolate chip cookie and a took home a loaf of their "Ellie" sandwich bread. Unfortunately, Cooqi does use canola oil in their breads, but overall I liked this little bakery and the ingredient list for most of their foods.

One place that has a surprisingly ample selection of gluten-free (and fabulous!) baked goods is the Wedge Co-op. There is this crazy good Pistachio Apricot Cake, an almond-coconut-chocolate torte that is divine, and even some freshly house-made gluten-free bread.

If you don't live in Minneapolis, or you prefer to DIY, I loved the looks of these gluten-free recipes:

Cottage Cheese Muffins- I'd use all almond flour here, an extra egg and full-fat cottage cheese.

Smoked Paprika Chicken Wrapped in Bacon - I think you all know how I feel about bacon...

mayonaise-dipped zucchini fried in breadcrumbs- I made this using Glutino bread crumbs but you could also use almond flour.

Almost every recipe at Liveable Low Carb looks like it's worth trying and they are all grain-free!

Sardine Fritters- it may sound weird but they look delish!

What is your favorite resource for gluten-free or grain-free eating where you live? Do you bake gluten/grain-free?

I am sharing this post with Cheeseslave's Real Food Wednesday, come see what other food bloggers are cooking up this week!

Curried Coconut Mussels on a Sea of Green

Thanks to my dear dad, the chief fishmonger at Coastal Seafoods for inspiring me to make this recipe, oh yeah, and for the great deal on seafood!

Shellfish are a fabulous, though sadly oft-neglected, part of any one's diet. Shellfish, including mussels, are excellent sources of many vitamins, including zinc and vitamin d, and provide a high level of omega 3 fatty acids. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the potential health benefits of eating seafood far outweighs any possible concerns such mercury contamination and other pollution concerns. Besides all that, shellfish are oh-so delicious!

Mussels are a beautiful, tasty gift from the sea that I grew up loving and still do. Don't be afraid to let your children try this dish, it's not spicy and it's a lot of fun (read: a good mess) to let them crack open the shells themselves and gulp down the nutritious little mussel they find inside. Neat fact: the pink mussels are female, white mussels are male, and mussels change their sex throughout their lifetime.

Curried Coconut Mussels on a Sea of Green

Ingredients for Curried Musssels on a Sea of Green:
serves 4


1.5 lbs very fresh Blue Hill Maine Mussels
1 pint fish stock (you can make it yourself or buy it frozen at Coastal Seafoods)
1 can full-fat coconut milk (of all the brands I've tried Whole Foods Organic has the highest fat content)
2 T yellow curry powder
1 T fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
1 T fish sauce
juice of 1/2 a lemon or 1 lime
a few strands of saffron
1 big bunch kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped
1 small onion sliced into half-circles
1 clove garlic finely chopped
2 T coconut oil
1 splash of red wine
real sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a large dutch oven (mine is a 5 qt.) bring fish stock, coconut milk, lemon juice, fish sauce, ginger, saffron and curry powder to a gentle boil, stirring with a whisk to in corporate the dry ingredients into the wet. Allow to reduce for about 5 minutes. Throw in all the mussels, and let them steam away until each shell opens,or approximately 3-5 minutes. Remove mussels once cooked and set aside. Continue boiling the sauce until desired thickness and flavor is achieved.

2. While the curry sauce is reducing, saute onion and garlic in a hot pan until fragrant and translucent. Turn heat to med-low and add kale. Allow to cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, then add in a splash of red wine (or water) and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until kale is a deep, dark, soft pan-full of green.

3. Serve mussels, in the shell or pulled out, over kale with large ladles full of coconut curry sauce.



I am sharing this post with Wardeh's Tuesday Twister blog carnival, please come read more about real food cooking there!

I'm also sharing this with Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesdays and Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!

Pink Yogurt with Grain-Free Granola- a delicious lower-carb breakfast

One of my goals for healthy eating in 2010 is to eliminate gluten and most grains from my diet. It might not be a popular idea, but I don't think grains do my body good, and there are delicious alternatives for baking without grains that I'm learning about, such as almond meal and coconut flour. I also am aiming for a lower carbohydrate intake, which for me means less then 100 grams carbs a day. On top of this I only want to feed myself real food of course! No bars or protein powders impersonating actual food, thank you very much!

With all this taking out of foods, what's a gal to put in? How about some nutritious full-fat yogurt, fresh or frozen blackberries and my favorite gluten-free, grain-free granola? I eat this breakfast many mornings and find it very satisfying, not to mention pretty in all its pinkness! The nutritional content of 6oz of Cultural Revolution unsweetened yogurt, 1/2 cup Lydia's Grain-Free Berry Cereal, and 1/4 cup frozen blackberries totals 24 grams carbs and about 400 calories.

For many folks on a more typical American diet, a "healthy" breakfast might be Kashi GOLEAN crunch with 1 cup of skim milk (by-the-by, as my mom would say, did you know the more skimmed your milk is the more sugar it contains, per cup?). This meal has 49 grams of carbs and 281 calories (personally I would still feel hungry having only eaten this for breakfast). Sounds like it's meant to be good for you and help you maintain a healthy weight, right?

If you read up on the effect of carbohydrate intake and weight gain you might come to the conclusion, as I have, that a major part of the reason folks in Western countries are struggling with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease at such alarmingly high rates, is due to our very high carbohydrate consumption. If you are thinking there might be something to this crazy idea that the Food Pyramid's guide for Americans is not working out so well for us (um, up to 11 servings of grains per day? That could equal an entire loaf of bread, which at 24 grams per slice would be 251 grams of carbs from this alone!) following is some recommended reading for you (and if you think this carb stuff is coo-koo, still feel free to try my breakfast idea; it's fast and filling and did I mention, pink, yet food-coloring free!).

Dr. Eades's blog: low-carb lifestyle advocate and author of numerous books on low-carb dieting.

Dr. Harris's blog is one of my favorites. He is a practicing radiologist and writes about nutrition and low-carb eating from an anthropological perspective.

Mark's Daily Apple: here is an introduction to "Primal", low-carb nutrition for better health and weight-loss, eat the way your body evolved to eat.

Good Calories, Bad Calories by science writer Gary Taubes. This book is a wealth of information that is provocative and a challenge to read but well worth the effort.

Warm Meal, Cold Night: gluten-free cottage pie with mashed yams

This post is also being published at the Nourished Kitchen!



I love cottage pie for supper, on a cold winter's night, it's a delicious comfort food. This recipe is simple, nourishing, and can be prepared using one cast-iron pan, what's more to love? One of my health-related goals for this new year is to eliminate gluten and other grains from my diet and eat more nutrient-dense animal foods, and plenty of good fats. This dish fits my criteria for a healthy meal filled with nutrients found grass fed animal foods such as > fat-soluble nutrients, locally raised ground beef, real butter, rich local > Cedar Summit Farms cream and no grains or gluten. As a mother, kid appeal of foods is a key factor in meal planning and this one gets a thumbs up from folks of all ages at our house.

Cottage Pie with Mashed Yams
serves 4-5

1 lb grass-fed ground beef
1 cup homemade beef stock or store bought organic beef broth
1/4 cup cream from grass-fed cows
1 stick good-quality butter (the higher fat content the better)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup diced carrots
2 medium sized yams or sweet potatoes
3/4 cup shredded grass-fed sharp cheddar cheese
1 T arrowroot powder
1 T finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
2 T organic tomato paste (I like Bionaturae as it's packaged in glass jars)
1 tsp organic Worcestershire sauce (I use Annie's)
real sea salt and crushed black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Bake yams in a 375 degree oven for 30-45 minutes or until soft when pricked with a fork. Peel yams, discarding the peel and mash them with 4 T butter, 1/4 cup cream and a dash of salt in an electric mixer. When the yams are nicely mashed set aside.

2. In a large cast-iron pan saute onions and carrots in 4 T butter on medium heat, stirring until onions are translucent and carrots are slightly browned. Add in ground beef, breaking up meat into small pieces with the back of a wooden spoon. Stir occasionally until beef is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

3. Pour in beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary and thyme, stirring to incorporate and turn heat to low. Allow the liquid to reduce a bit, about 15 minutes or so. Add in the peas, and sprinkle the arrowroot on top. Briskly stir to prevent the arrowroot from clumping, then continue stirring gently until the sauce has thickened, less then 5 minutes. Add in salt and pepper to taste. Remove pan from heat, turn oven to 375 degrees.

4. Spread mashed yams evenly on top of the meat and veggie mixture. Sprinkle cheese over the yams. Bake for about 25 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and starting to brown.

Enjoy this warm meal with your family on a cold day (it's 7 degrees here as I write this, brrr...)!

Thank you Jenny, for inviting me to write this guest post for the Nourished Kitchen. For more real food ramblings and recipes please visit me at MplsRealFoodLover.com

I am sharing this post with the Nourishing Gourmet's new year's resolution carnival, and Food Renegade's fight back fridays, too!

I am also sharing this at Kitchen Stewerdship!

Links of Inspiration for Real Food Cooking

I just bought Elana Amsterdam's > Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook and am loving it! The first recipe I tried were the chocolate chip cookies, to which I added shredded coconut and, wow, they were delicious! Everyone here is a fan, the kids had 4 each. I basically don't ever do recipes as they are written. I tend to use recipes, and cookbooks in general, as inspiration for working with what I have in my kitchen, adding in, and taking out various parts of a recipe. I love baking but find following recipes exactly to be so restrictive! Sometimes my results are a flop but often I come up with something new and delectable, though hard to reproduce.

Elana's recipes call for > grape seed oil and > agave syrup (interesting debate on agave if you click the former link), neither of which I am convinced are the healthiest or least-processed foods. In place of these ingredients I used melted butter and a mixture of real, local honey and organic cane sugar. I also used 1/3 cup sweeteners in total, rather then the 1/2 cup called for and found the resulting cookies were still a bit sweet for my tastes (and have a sweet tooth!). Overall, I really do like Elana's recipes and her very cleanly-designed, user-friendly > website.

I have mentioned the > Sprouted Kitchen before and I'm tooting the horn again, because the author's photography and food is just so beautiful (and quite healthy). I made her recipe for baby chocolate molten cakes and loved them, though when made with 73% dark chocolate they were a bit too rich for the kids. Oh well, more for me!

The way I get most of my inspiration for cooking is at the market, seeking out locally grown foods. You might catch me "gathering" (aka shopping!) at one of our > local co-ops, my > favorite farmer's market, the best > butcher shop or my > family fish-mongery (I do realize "fish-mongery" is probably not a real word).

These days most home cooks do not forage for our food in the wild, yet I believe the primal urge to gather food is something we cannot escape. > Here's an interesting article about a Minneapolis native who still revels in the lost art of urban foraging. For the rest of us modern gatherers' pleasure is my most recent co-op haul, ringing in at a grand total of 95$.



oh and by the way, the natural soda pop is for my husband who is 2 months cigarette free (yay!!!) and craves a treat once in a while.