CSA in the Kitchen

Happy {official} Autumn to everyone!  The frosts are coming and so we mark a change in what's on our table - which is a little sad and a little relieving (I don't know how many more new tomato dishes I could come up with!).  Time to look forward to more greens and hearty root vegetables and winter squash.  I tend to think of fall as the season of roasting and soup-making.

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And so, not surprisingly, the first item this week is a roasted heirloom tomato soup.

You may need to use some frozen or canned tomatoes to have enough for this soup, or you can use what you have and make an individual serving.  This recipe is adapted from American Classics.  

Halve or quarter the tomatoes and remove the seeds.  If you like, you can also remove the skin by dipping the whole tomato in boiling water for about 30 seconds.  Arrange the tomatoes in a roasting pan on tin foil.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and roast for about 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  When the tomatoes have lost most of their juices and are starting to color, remove from oven and set aside.

In a pot over medium heat, melt 1.5 tablespoons of butter.  When foaming, add 1 minced small red onion or shallot and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste.  Reduce the heat to low and cover.  Stir occasionally until the onion has softened.  Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour.  Then, stirring/whisking constantly, add in 1 to 2 cups of chicken stock then add in the roasted tomatoes.  Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes to allow flavors to meld.  Remove from heat and pass through a food mill or a blender.  Return to the pot and add as much cream as seems delicious to you.  Enjoy with a grilled cheese sandwich, or just some buttery croutons on top!

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If you decide to make croutons (toss cubed bread with melted butter and toast in the oven, turning once, for 15 minutes), they would also be delicious atop a salad such as this - grilled romaine.

Normally, you see recipes for grilled romaine hearts, which is the tight part inside of the greener leaves.  After attempting to grill and entire head of romaine, we now understand why.  The grilling wilted the outer leaves rather significantly, leaving them limp and unattractive.  On the plus side though, smoky salad tastes awesome.

If you'd like to give it a try, coat the outside of your whole head of lettuce with olive oil or a neutral oil.  Heat the grill as hot as it will go then put the lettuce right on there, turning to cook all sides for a total of only 2 minutes or so.  When "cooked" chop into smaller pieces, dress with vinaigrette and serve.

We ate this salad as a side to our usual {delicious} burgers and another side of creamed spinach.  Creamed spinach is not such a pretty thing to take a picture of, but it sure does taste good!  Here is a good-looking recipe.  We simply cooked the spinach in boiling water until wilted, drained and pressed the water out.  Returned to the pot with about 1/2 cup or less of cream, 1/4 cup of grated Romano cheese, and 2 tablespoons of butter.  Pretty simple and so satisfying.

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This week we had the option of taking horseradish with our share.  It was optional since it seems people don't like the stuff.  Well, Grady does so we took a whole bunch home.  We peeled it like carrots and then grated it using our food processor, although a cheese grater would also work just as well.  Once grated, we blended it with a few tablespoons of white vinegar and we've got a condiment for ... steak? {Honestly, I don't use this stuff in cooking, but Grady makes it taste good!} all ready in our fridge.  Because it contains vinegar, it should last a while this way.

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This week we chose peppermint as our herb and we have turned it into a syrup.  We made a simple syrup by dissolving 1.5 cups of sugar (you can go up to 2) in 2 cups of boiling water.  Once dissolved, off heat and throw in your bunch of peppermint.  Cover and allow to steep for about 30 minutes, or longer, to taste.  Cool the liquid and store in a jar in the fridge.  This syrup will likely make its way into adult beverages seeing as we have also made mint-infused vodka, a.k.a. creme de menthe.  However, if you'd like to make something sweet and non-alcoholic, I would highly recommend making peppermint ice cream.  We made some last year and it was by far the best homemade ice cream we'd had (and this was after getting the Ben and Jerry's recipe book from the library).

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We have some Asian greens again this week.  Our stand-by at the moment is stir-fry since it worked so well last time and we haven't gotten tired of it yet.

Oooh!  Kohlrabi!  I almost forgot - we haven't made it yet so I don't have a picture, but I'm sure we will be shredding our kohlrabi with some crisp apples and making a coleslaw with it.  Come to think of it, we probably should have made that to go with our burgers!  

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As always, please let us know if you have any ideas or if you've tried our recipes and discovered better ways to make them.  Hope everyone has a great week!

~ Courtney and Grady

CSA in the Kitchen

Welcome to another week in the kitchen!

It seems that the temperature may finally be dropping a bit {I try to be as cautious as possible when talking about Chicago weather!} and yesterday we even had a rainy day!  Hopefully this means good things for Montalbano Farms. 

As I consider the coming cooler weather, I'm reminded of an excellent way to prepare essentially any vegetable: roasting.

A good friend of mine reminded me recently that it's not just beets and winter squashes that take well to this form of cooking.  Last night, we tossed some chopped carrots with olive oil (you can also use butter) and sprinkled with salt and pepper, set in the oven at 400 for 45 minutes or so - voila!  Dinner. ... ah well, part of dinner!  We had a tiny cabbage on hand as well, so I cored and chopped that, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper - are you noticing a trend? and cooked it alongside the carrots.

Your new kitchen motto could be: When in doubt, Roast it.  Many vegetables are made sweeter by roasting, which can make even the ones you might think of as less-pleasing, more tasty.

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On with the sweet peppers!  I've already suggested quite a few ways to prepare these crisp veggies and I probably already suggested grilling.  If you haven't tried it, you should.  Cut the peppers in half (remove seeds and ribs), rub with olive oil and place on the grill.  You should use a lower flame or keep them partially away from the flame.  Here we were working with a charcoal grill and we put them over very hot embers.  {You also see onions, garlic, jalapenos and tomatillos here.  We're serious about grilling stuff}.

Predictably, these all went into some fabulous fajitas!

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Speaking of peppers, did you grab a handful of hot peppers when you picked up your CSA?  Or maybe you got a whole bunch in your share?  Great!  Aside from making excellent fresh salsa, jalapenos will serve you well in the form of Jalapeno Poppers.

As you may have guessed, these were also grilled.  Grady cut a little 'window' into each pepper to get the seeds and ribs out.  Then he mixed our fajita seasoning into cream cheese, the amount of seasoning will vary with your taste but I'd say he used a big pinch per pepper.  Stuff the peppers with the cheese mix, close the 'window' with a toothpick, then cook on the grill away from direct heat for 20 minutes until slightly charred and cheese is melty.  Beware the tips!  They'll be hotter (spice-wise) than the body of the pepper.

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This rather creepy looking jar of stuff is actually a rather delicious and easy way to make pickles.  We've been getting cucumbers of just the right size for the last few weeks and every new one has gone into this jar as it has arrived in our kitchen.  I can't say I love pickles, but Grady does so we make them.  For a batch of pickles you'll need a large glass or ceramic jar with a wide mouth plus a small plate that fits inside the mouth and a mason jar filled with water to weigh the plate down when the time comes.

Dissolve 6 TBS of sea salt in 1/2 gallon of filtered water, add your cucumbers, up to 2 heads of peeled garlic, and a few branches of fresh dill.  Make sure everything is fully submerged under the brine (this is where the small weight and plate come in), cover with a cloth and leave on the counter for up to 4 weeks after which time you can move it to the fridge.  Over the course of these weeks, the salt will inhibit the growth of bad (food-spoiling) bacteria and encourage good bacteria that will sour and preserve the cucumbers.  If the water level gets low, add 1 TBS of salt dissolved in 1 cup of filtered water.  If white stuff grows on the top, just skim it off - no worries!

This recipe is taken from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz and I strongly recommend reading the book for further questions and excellent recipes!  Our pickles have turned out quite well, so don't be afraid!

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Finally, here's a picture of that pasta dish from last week that involves fresh chopped tomatoes.  If you haven't tried it, this is a great meal to throw together at the last minute.

 

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 Love selecting your herb every week and then by mid-week you sadly realize you've yet to use it?  Most herbs can be dried very easily and they make so much of a difference in your cooking that you simply must try it!  I soak the herb in a little bowl of cold water and swish it around just to make sure all the dirt gets rinsed off.  I spread it to dry and, once dry, place loosely in a paper bag, fold the bag closed and leave in the pantry (away from heat and light) until I forget about them.  At the point that I remember them, which is hopefully about a month all together, I strip the dried leaves from the stems and store in an air-tight container.  The smell of thyme mid-winter or a little crushed oregano to brighten your chili - just these things make it worth your while.

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We are always looking for new ideas and feedback about how to prepare CSA veggies!  If you'd like, please share any tips or recipes you've discovered along the way.  Thanks!

~ Courtney and Grady

CSA in the Kitchen

It's that time of the week again!  To all of our Montalbano Farms friends, sorry about the confusion as to which CSA week we're in.  Different locations started on different days so we're not all numbered the same.  From now on, I will simply be sharing what we're doing/have done with what we got in our Logan Square Market share on Sunday morning.  Again, please feel free to comment with ideas and recipes!

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Beautiful, crisp green beans.  I'm not going to lie - this week I will be eating every single one of these raw and probably with my hands.  I love these veggies and they're so refreshing on a hot summer's day that I'm not really sure why you'd want to cook them.  If, however, you do not love green beans as much as I do, I would suggest slicing them on an angle to make smaller pieces and then combining them with sliced cucumber and tomato.  Dress this mid-summer salad with olive oil and the vinegar of your choosing - we have an oregano vinegar that I would use for this!

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 The bell peppers this week would be great candidates for stuffing, following the same guidelines as we used a few weeks ago for zucchini (found here).  If I were considering turning up the heat in my oven (which, to be honest I'm probably not since we don't have central air), I would love these pepper sliced on top of a pizza!  Green peppers, mushrooms and onions is my favorite topping and all of these things can be be found in our CSA/other farmers market vendor stalls.  This week, however, I may be setting these peppers aside for a cooler day when I do want to make pizza so I'll wash and slice them, lay the slices on a tray to freeze and then store them in a freezer bag once they're solid.  The texture doesn't hold too well, but they still taste great!

 This heap of jalapenos may get frozen this week too.  The heat drops significantly once frozen, but I don't much mind that.  Another simple way of making these peppers last longer is to make chile paste.  Wearing gloves (really, you should - have you ever touched your eyes after handling peppers?  seriously unpleasant!), stem and seed 2 - 3 or more peppers and chop.  Puree in a blender while slowly adding hot water to make a paste.  Add salt and then store in the refrigerator.  You can use this paste as a base for sauces, to spike soups, flavor meats, maybe veggies - the possibilities are only limited by your taste buds and your ability to remember that you have it in the fridge!

Those last little red peppers I'm thinking are going to be in an infusion of some kind but I haven't decided yet (oil? vodka? vinegar?); I'll keep you posted.

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More lovely tomatoes!  Tonight I plan to enjoy these raw, chopped and tossed with pasta.  For the dish I'll add some shredded basil, drizzle with olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper.  If I'm feeling very accomplished in the kitchen I may even crush a few garlic cloves to simmer very lightly in the olive oil before tossing - this will infuse the oil and I'll discard the cloves once the oil is ready.  Come to think of it ... this is essentially the dinner version of the appetizer from last week, bruschetta.  Parmesan cheese would also be a welcome topping for this meal.

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The beets we received will likely be roasted (wrapped in foil in the oven at 400 until soft when pierced) and eaten warm with butter as a side dish.  I plan to eat the greens steamed and also with butter, possibly as a side with my pasta tonight.  Butter just makes so many things better!

The cucumbers probably won't get buttered ... although ... bread and butter pickles, while not containing actual butter, are extremely delicious ... however, I was more thinking of trying a salad of this type.

Watermelon!  How could I forget?!  Do you really need to be inspired to eat this treat?  Well, if you don't want to get your cheeks sticky with juice, we offer the following suggestion - try something a little different involving muddling a few watermelon cubes with fresh mint leaves and simple syrup then shaking with ice and gin (or white rum or vodka or no alcohol at all, just add more soda) - top it off with a bit of club soda.

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Thanks for stopping by!

~ Courtney and Grady

CSA Week 9

We're coming to you live this week from the Cape Cod Bay!  Yes, we actually brought our share with us in the car on our 19 hour trip so that we could enjoy our Montalbano goodness while on vacation.  In addition to bringing produce from home, we also went to some effort to seek out local farms here on the Cape - let me tell you that they are not so easy to get to!  We hope to get to a small farmers market tomorrow though and we're very excited at the prospect.

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If I were to describe this week's share in one word it would be: corn.  Like, a serious amount of the stuff.  I'm certainly not complaining though since sweet corn season is so short that we should all gorge ourselves while we can since the fresh ear's counterpart in the frozen food aisle just can't compare.

The kitchen we have to work with out here is tiny, to say the least, so pretty much everything is going on the grill.  According to Grill Master/Guru Steve Raichlen, only Midwesterners grill their corn with the husk on and he would say that the rest of the country takes the husk off with good reason.  Grilling corn sans husk means you're getting delicious grill flavor in the corn itself ... instead of in the husk.

So far we've had grilled corn with homemade mayo and grilled corn with just butter, salt and pepper.  Later this week we're looking forward to corn and tomatillo salsa made in the same style as the salsa from last week but with different ingredients to go with steak fajitas (this will be a recurring theme I'm sure) with grilled onions and sweet peppers.  

If you've never grilled onions, I would highly recommend it - they're smoky and deliciously amazing.  Grady runs a toothpicks through the onion lengthwise and then slices in between so that the rings are held together by the pick.  He the lays them on the grill away from direct heat or on very low heat for just a few minutes each side.  I'll try to add pictures of the process the next time we do it.

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With fresh tomatoes you can make salsa, as we did last week, or make Italian salsa aka bruschetta.  Chop a few perfectly ripe tomatoes and toss in a bowl with some salt.  Tear or chop a handful of basil leaves and toss with the tomatoes.  Finally, drizzle olive oil on a few pieces of crusty bread and toast in a skillet over medium-low heat.  You could also pour a generous amount of oil into the pan and add a crushed garlic clove - this will result in very oily, very addicting crisp breads.  When the bread is browned a crispy, top with tomato mixture and serve.  This is a great, quick appetizer that requires a few simple ingredients and very little heat.

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Our last two meals this week have used very little from this week's share but feature other local produce rather prominently.  First we had bratwurst with a side of kale and grilled corn, a cup of potato and leek soup, and homemade sauerkraut (from Montalbano cabbages, post about that here).  I'm still learning what to do with leeks but we brought an enormous one home and we already had potatoes and it was in the upper 60's so soup is what happened.  Chop the white and light green part of the leek and saute it on medium heat in a whole bunch of butter until it's soft.  Add potatoes and water/milk/stock and salt.  Bring to a boil then simmer until potatoes are soft.  Mash/puree/leave whole and serve.

The second meal was pub-style burgers with lots of veggies.  Once again, grilled corn and kale plus quick-sauteed zucchini.  The burger was topped with caramelized onions (low heat with lots of butter in a skillet) and special pub sauce as developed by the food geniuses in America's Test Kitchen.  I am personally opposed to sharing published recipes on the internet so I will have to tease you by saying this sauce is revolutionary and you should find it at the library or pay to get access to it online.  It involves 3 cloves of garlic, some Worcestershire sauce and mayonnaise.  

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We're haven't quite decided what we'll be doing with our little eggplant - probably roasting.  This is one of those vegetables that just doesn't inspire me yet.  I love moussaka but it's a significant amount of work and is usually a main dish and I haven't personally experimented much beyond that, I'm sorry to say.  Rachel's recipe from the newsletter looks great so we may give that a try.  We'll let you know what we do this week but we'd love for you to share any recipes or inspirations you may have in the comments - we will certainly benefit from it!

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And finally, just to let you in on a bit of the beauty we are currently enjoying I give you: My Morning Cup of Coffee.

  

See you back in Illinois next week!

~ Courtney and Grady

Joe's Blues

Mid-July is the time for local blueberries and this year we were able to go out and pick nearly 13 pounds of fresh, organically-grown Michigan blueberries!  We rented a blueberry bush from a place called Joe's Blues and they guarantee that you will get at least 12 pounds from your bush.  This past weekend we took a mini vacation just around the lake to go see our bush and take from it every ripe berry we could find.

These are a high bush variety that are nearly 60 years old!  I hope to be this productive when I get to be that age :-)

The day was lovely, sunny and a bit hot so after we packed up our bounty, we headed to the little downtown area to grab a bite to eat and followed that with a short trip to the beach.

Being an East Coast girl, Lake Michigan has always creeped me out just a little bit.  It's so huge and ocean-like, but it's not the ocean.  I just get confused and a little disturbed, which is probably why this was actually my first time ever touching this lake.  I know, I've lived near the lake for almost 8 years now and have never even dipped a toe in.  I guess it took a blueberry high and the beauty of Michigan to convince me!  I was still confused though since my first thought when we chose our beach spot was that we would have to move soon if the tide was still coming in.  To me 'beach' will likely always mean 'ocean.'

No beautiful summer vacation would be complete without a bite or two of ice cream so that was our last stop before heading home.

Almost a week later, we're still working on getting all those blueberries into the freezer - we finally ordered our deep freezer and it comes tomorrow.  Between the cherries and the blueberries and hopefully soon some peaches and possible 1/4 of a cow ... well, we're going to need it!

As I said in my cherry post, we've decided to freeze because it's simple, stores produce close to peak nutrition and you can use it months in the future for most of the same purposes as fresh.  We realize we're using up electricity to keep our goods frozen and that we're in some trouble if we lose power for an extended period of time (although I would imagine being city apartment dwellers that this may not be as likely for us as for others) but dehydrating would probably be our next ideal option and we don't have a dehydrator yet, so we'll wait.

For now, we are overflowing with delicious, little blueberries.  This experience only compounds my desire to grow fruit on our own property some day - we got 13 pounds in one day from one bush - just imagine the possibilities!  Fruit growing can be challenging work, but oh how rich you feel when you run your hands through pounds of fresh berries!  Such extravagance.

Fermentation: Successes and Failures

A few months ago I ordered two very exciting books:

The Essential Urban Farmer is filled with excellent information about all things urban/small-space farming and I'm sure I will gush more about it's usefulness when I finally get around to writing about our little community garden space.  But the other book - wild fermentation, well, it's been causing a stir here in our kitchen.

The only real fermentation I've been doing has been yogurt, which you can read about here, and because we don't buy raw milk at the moment there isn't much that's truly wild about that process.  Thanks to Sandor, though, we're branching out!

Fermentation #1: Sourdough

The basic way to make a sourdough starter is to mix equal parts flour and water, stir a few times per day and wait for wild yeast to show up and feast upon the meal you made for them.  We caught our little critters within 48 hours!

Once you catch them, you need to keep feeding and watering them, but you're also free to bake with their natural leavening power!  This is mostly where the success/failure comes in - we made the "Alaskan Hotcakes" recipe in the book and they were generally a success although I still need to figure out how to cook them properly.

They were quite edible, noticeably sour and improved greatly with maple syrup and apple butter.

Next I tried bread.  Bread brings with it a long list of failures for me (see this post for an example).  When I first started, things were OK but I was using all white flour and commercial yeast and that's just not what I'm after for regular consumption anymore.  After exploding glass in a hot oven on two occasions and attempting many "foolproof" and "scientific" methods, I still am mostly disappointed.  But it's bread for goodness sake!  Haven't people been making bread for almost forever?  How could it be so hard and complicated?  So, based on Sandor's kitchen ethic of never measuring, I mixed up some sourdough bread (I did this also because I really couldn't find a plain sourdough recipe that uses whole wheat flour, only sourdough starter, and makes 1 loaf).  Serious failure.

I've read many times that the main problem with novice-made bread is that they add too much flour while kneading, so you're supposed to wet your hands to keep the dough from sticking.  Let me tell you - I kneaded this dough with wet hands, dry hands, floured hands and everywhere in between for probably 45 minutes and never achieved the smooth, elastic dough that all bread makers aspire to.  I also got embarrassingly angry and frustrated with my dough.  Eventually, I got it in a semi-manageable state, let it rise again and dumped it in the oven.  The resulting bread was edible but seriously dense and had a pathetic crust.  I'm giving up on bread making for the foreseeable future.  Grady says he may try his hand now and that's just fine with me!

On to successes...

Fermentation #2: Cabbage aka Sauerkraut

 

Pretty straightforward: chop cabbage, add salt, pound it to release water to cover and let it sit and do it's thing.

I have actually failed at this before too and I'm not totally sure why except I think I didn't get the water level high enough (I added salt water to the crock above because the amount pictured is definitely not enough).  Our kraut is coming along nicely now and we may begin eating it tonight (it was started about a week ago).

Fermentation #3: Honey Wine

This one is also very simple.  Mix honey and water and let it sit out, stirring a few times per day.  In the same way as with sourdough, the sweet mixture attracts yeast and starts the fermentation process.  Once you've got some bubbles going (ours fizzed like soda when stirred), transfer to a carboy with an airlock to finish.

This is also a more immediate gratification concoction than other alcoholic ferments in that it can be ready 2 weeks after starting, although you can let it go for about 4 and bottle and age it, if you want to.  We haven't tasted it yet but all seems to be going according to plan, so hopefully we'll be enjoying it soon!

Cherry Season

The cherries are here!  Cherry season is finally upon us and the tables at the market now stock neat boxes packed with the deep red little fruit.  For some, however, this season either didn't come at all or came with little promise.  Here in the Midwest, we had a week of summer weather in very early spring followed by more normal, down to freezing, spring temperatures.  This combination proved disastrous for fruit blossoms as they came out for spring and in some cases were then frozen off their branches.  Thankfully, a few vendors at Green City Market were still able to bring a small crop to market.



Knowing that the harvest would be small this year, Grady and I took the first opportunity to buy 8 pints of cherries to save up for future use.  Not only did we get a delicious box full of sweet and sour (1/2 and 1/2) cherries, but Grady also bought me a small bouquet of elderflowers {post to come on this}!!! 

We spent about an hour together on Independence Day just standing in the kitchen, pitting cherries.  Having no special device to remove said pits, we experimented with different techniques using a wooden chopstick.  Overall, certainly a messy endeavor but so worth it as long as you're wearing an apron!

For the moment, we are freezing most of the excess produce we bring home.  There are many ways of preserving food and there are pros and cons to each one.  Freezing uses up energy to keep things frozen, it's a big problem if you lose power for more than a few hours (well, less of a problem with fruit than meat), and it can make the produce watery once thawed.  Still, we are using this method for fruit right now because it seems to be the best way to keep just the fruit.  I don't want to make jams and jellies, except a very small batch or two, because we rarely eat them and they all require sweetener, usually white sugar, to preserve.  We simply are looking to have fruit in as close to natural state as possible come winter.  I have no citation for this at the moment, but I have also read in numerous places that freezing is the best method for retaining maximum nutrients since canning cooks them and depletes them.  One caveat to the above would be that natural fermentation often is the best choice because it preserves using no energy and it often makes nutrients more available than when the produce was fresh.  We have a few fermentations on the counter right now too, but that will also wait for another post.

Our summer kitchen is busy and full.  Cherries are our latest joy but there are still more fruits and berries to come (not to mention the cabbage, cucumbers, squash, basil, etc ....)!  How are you putting up summer's bounty in your kitchen?

{once} more pertaining to food

As I sat typing along on Monday, I realized that I have so much more to say than I'd want to bore you with in one post.  So, two posts it is.  This works out quite well for me, actually, because it seems the only thing I've been taking pictures of recently is food - we'll need to work on that as I don't intend this to become a food blog.

A Brief History:

In November of 2009, I married my wonderful husband and returned to Illinois to make a home with him.  Throughout our courtship I believe the only thing I cooked for him was cinnamon pancakes from a box (gasp!).  He, on the other hand, made me many delicious and creative meals that were beautifully served to boot!  However, I was at home more often than he so it made sense for me to do the cooking.

 (Me at our first dinner in our new home: pan seared steak au poivre, risotto, and a spinach salad)

{Let me add: that might sound fancy but it was one of the only things I knew how to cook}

Now, I did know how to cook a little bit.  I helped my mom make dinner (mostly in the form of putting things in the oven and taking them out again at the right time) - I spent some time in the few months before my wedding preparing dinner for my parents ... with varied success.  This, however, did not go far in preparing me to make every meal we ate from my own grocery list from a budget.  About two weeks in, there were many tears shed over my feelings of inadequacy.

 (My reinvented childhood classic - Broccoli Chicken Casserole - this one sans Campbell)

Enter: the public library (I do so love libraries!).  It took until this time to realize that libraries have a cookbook section.  As I love reading, I would gather a stack as big as I could manage (think fingertips to chin here - did I mention I lived next door?), then read them cover to cover.  This could well have been just an education in how to make edible meals but the books that I was most drawn to also taught me something of how to cook, how to choose ingredients, how to think about food - and so I was drawn into a much larger discussion about food, where it comes from, how it's grown, how it works in the body, etc.  Be aware!  Books can change your world!  {For a list of some books that have changed my world, check out my Resources tab}.

So at this point, I still read many books about food and cooking and farming/gardening and I continue to learn and be inspired.  There is one book, though, that I would say takes things a bit farther than everyone else ... Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.  You may have heard of her from a number of others in the blogging community, or you may have never heard of such a thing.  In any case, as the title suggests, Sally believes the most healthful food choices you can make are returning to the food traditions of our ancestors (an opinion echoed by almost every Slow Food-minded author I've read).

While I agree with much of Sally (and co-author Mary Enig)'s conclusions based on their research, that doesn't make them any easier to do.  She calls for things like soaking all whole grains/beans 8 - 24 hours before cooking, drinking raw milk, and lacto-fermenting almost all condiments.  For her reasoning, I would suggest you read the book.  These things take planning ahead, which I have learned to do much better, but still aren't easy.  So while I read the book originally last summer, we are still in the slow process of adjusting the way we eat to incorporate more of her methods (because, in general, I do think they are better for us).

(Irish soda bread with chicken liver pate, which wasn't actually very good, but we were trying to incorporate more organ meats into our diet.  Now, I just take Cod Liver Oil pills and recommend that method!)

(Tomorrow's breakfast of steel-cut oats and tonight's dinner of black beans soaking)

Right now I am working on making bread.  It seems like it should be so simple, but maintaining a sourdough starter is intimidating me and I would like to use only recipes that call for soaking whole wheat, of which there aren't many aside from Sally's.  I have a batch of yeast-ed bread soaking right now, so we'll see how that goes.  The other challenge I'm taking on is eliminating sugar from my/our diet.  It's way harder than I thought it would be!  I've replaced our sugar with honey and maple syrup so far but now have to figure out how to restrain myself when I'm offered sugared substances outside my home as I find my will-power lacking in those circumstances.  My new go-to for cravings is now eggs with melty, delicious cheese, pictured below!

Isn't food just beautiful?!  Sigh.  Not to mention that if you saute this palette, you get a delicious base to most soups and many sauces as well - like for this delicious, easy to throw together chicken soup!

You must either love food or love me to have made it to the end of this rather long post!  I'd love for you to share your thoughts below, or even questions, if you like. 

I'm thankful for food because it is tasty, nourishing and beautiful.
 
{My friend Katrina thinks so as well, over at Art & Table}