Goodbye Summer Garden!

It's the end of July and we're saying our goodbyes to our summer vegetable garden.  It has been a good summer, so it's not in sadness.  We feel thankful for all that Mother Nature has helped us cultivate and we are anxious to get started planting our fall garden fare. 

Gone are the yellow crook neck squash.  Gone are the zucchinis.  Gone are the crawling, climbing vines of our winter squash mix (they're called winter squash because they keep through the fall, not because they are to be grown then).  Gone are our carrots, long to cultivate yet short to enjoy.  All is out of the soil and has nourished our palates, our bodies, and our souls.  I love summer gardening season.

Korey and I have three raised beds in our yard.  Raised beds are the easiest for me because they are the easiest to keep tidy of a lot of pesky weeds.  We only plant a select few vegetables due to all of my lovely intolerances.  Everything in this garden is grown organically, free of all man-made products and bug deterrents.  I've enjoyed these beds for the past two summers.  I've cultivated veggies and have been able to garner the holistic benefit of time spent outside, either alone working or working along side of my husband.  It has been a form of medicine for me, especially in the warmer months.

Yesterday we spent the early morning hours pulling out plants that have ran their courses.  It's incredible to realize how fast the summer has gone by.  It's also incredible to know that you have taken an active role in cultivating the food that you put into your body.  So many people take the food that they eat for granted, not thinking twice about the time that has gone into its creation.  Well, let's admit it (bluntly):  Folks that spend the less time thinking about their foods' origin probably aren't eating REAL FOOD in the first place!

I eat real food.  My husband eats real food.  We grow a lot of our own food, including chicken and eggs.  We work for what we eat and because of that we cherish it and enjoy it through the entire process.  There's something to be said about a dish of roasted carrots that took the entire summer to grow and only one meal to devour entirely!  You have to enjoy it when that much time and effort has gone into it's existence.  Just going to the store and buying a bag of carrots and throwing them in the oven doesn't give you the same feeling...physically or emotionally. 

Here's a look at our not so huge haul of carrots from our garden:

As you can see, this isn't that much yield, and believe me a lot of time went into these babies!  Carrots are so particular, I tell ya!  Damn things...

I told myself Korey and I were going to enjoy these guys as best we could since this was all we were gonna get for the summer.  Let me just tell you, store bought carrots (and yes, even the organic ones) don't do naturally grown, out-of-your-own-backward carrots any justice.  The flavor is much more complex, more earthy, and really takes to roasting VERY well.  So, that's what I did with them.

Everything's better (well, just MORE delicious) with bacon, right?!  I happened to have some left- over bacon grease from breakfast, so I decided that would be the fat that I'd cook the carrots in.  I tossed them in the fat, added a tiny pinch of salt, some fresh cracked pepper and a little cumin and in the oven they went until fork-tender.  As you know I don't time things because it's too much to think about :)  Here's what I ended up with:

They were sooo good!  Korey's not one for al dente veggies, but as aforementioned anything with bacon is bound to be enjoyed...even by my husband!

That wasn't the only thing we enjoyed out of the garden over the weekend.  I also made a luscious, hearty meat sauce with roasted tomatoes that we had canned earlier this summer.  With that I used some grass fed ground beef from Little Creek Ranch, some onion, garlic, and herbs.  I roasted spaghetti squash from my garden and VOILA!  Ultimate deliciousness for Korey.  I was uber jealous since I couldn't eat it.  Long story short, with FODMAPs I can't (well shouldn't, so I choose not to) eat tomatoes, garlic, or onions.  Big bummer, I know.  But I get just as much enjoyment out of seeing my husband enjoy what I make for him.  And he likes being my sous chef/taste tester!



Unfortunately you can't see the mound of luscious squash due to the meaty sauce he piled on top, but you get the point:  It's good eatin'!

I hope at some point you get to enjoy the pleasure of cultivating your own food.  I tell you I wouldn't change a thing, even if it means being dirty, hot, and sweaty and covered in piss ants during any part of the process.  Well, the piss ants are a little annoying but it's just part of it!  I love my garden and am looking forward to the fall's haul!



Korey's (Almost) Paleo Birthday!

Ahhh birthdays! Another good reason to celebrate with FOOD. Come to think of it, though, I do that everyday (it's somebody's birthday somewhere!).  We actually started early by going out to one of our favorite places last night, Josephine’s Bistro in Greensboro.

This has been on our fave list for a while.  We go there for birthdays, anniversaries, and any other time we want to celebrate some occasion, even if it’s just going to dinner with friends we haven’t been out with for some time.  Honestly we’d probably go more often, but as much as I like to cook and as frugal as we can be about our food (not to mention how challenging it is for someone like me with my allergies to go out to eat), we choose to save it for certain days of the year. 

Josephine’s is not an inexpensive place, but it’s not outrageous either.  As with most things, you get what you pay for, and at this restaurant you’re paying for quality, local ingredients, nice atmosphere and great service.  The food is always changing depending on the season and the chef really knows how to make ordinary food taste extraordinary.  I happen to prefer this spot because the chef also is not afraid to push the envelope.  Greensboro isn’t exactly a culinary capital, which makes this a great place for folks who like to try new things.  For instance, on the menu last night were fois gras and bone marrow—two dishes that most folks aren’t willing to give a chance. 

Last night we split the fois gras and bone marrow appetizer.  The fois is so luscious and fatty, packing so much flavor in such a little package.  The bone marrow is spoonable and luxurious.  The dish comes with crustini, but who would want to ruin a good marrow by spreading it on bread…not me!  These two are served with thinly sliced poached pear and a dried fruit compote.  This provides just enough acidity to cut the fattiness of the fois and marrow, but it’s not too sweet to be overpowering for an appetizer.

Korey and I both ordered the duck breast, his medium rare and mine rare, of course.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with duck breast, it should be served as close to rare as you can stand to really appreciate the quality of the meat.  Plus, there’s the added bonus that rarer meats are more easily digested—always a good tip to remember if you’re digestion is somewhat compromised as mine is.  His duck was served with an arugula salad, hard boiled quail egg, white beans and fingerling potatoes (the last two items are obviously not Paleo, but when it’s fine dining there’s only a sprinkling so he just ate around them).  The plate was drizzled with a blueberry gastrique.  I had to change my order, of course, and had the chef prepare wilted greens and roasted radishes to nestle around my duck.  Let me tell you, as always I didn’t miss the “regular” side dishes that are paired with the duck!  The skin was perfectly crisped and because the breast was rare, the integrity of the duck remained in all of its wonderfulness.  I couldn’t eat it all, although I truly wanted to!  Delicious. 

Okay, I’m about to start talking dirty.  By “dirty” I mean I am about to use language that I normally do not use in spoken or written form.  Keep in mind it was Korey’s birthday and since he eats cleanly 90% of the time, I can overlook one mishap.  After he had devoured his entire dinner (and that was one large breast!), he wanted one of their house-made desserts. He chose the peach cobbler with Homeland Creamery vanilla ice cream.  Homeland Creamery is a local business, only a few miles as a crow flies away from our little house.  I suppose this made it an acceptable choice to him!  That type of thing doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, thank goodness.  They say, though, that folks like me who have fructose malabsorption that the thought of sugar tends to make one feel queasy…that’d be my response to desserts.

We truly enjoyed our dinner in all of its fabulousness.  In fact, Korey had actually ordered a melon gazpacho to only find out that it was so popular that they had ran out before we got there!  Because of this, I’ve decided to try and make one for him to go alongside of his dinner tonight…his actual birthday dinner!

Before I get into tonight’s eats, let me fill you in on his birthday breakfast.  See, Korey’s pretty typical for breakfast.  He usually looks at it as fuel and doesn’t stray far from his usual path of a few scrambled eggs, a little ham or turkey and some sliced avocado if it’s here at the house.  Even on the weekends, this is usually what I throw together for him before we start our morning chores and grocery haul.  We had two lone tomatoes sitting, perfectly ripe on the front porch rail.  I also had a little leftover barbeque that Korey had been eating off of a couple nights this week.  So, what did I do?  I sliced off the tops of the tomatoes, scooped out the innards, leaving little tomato cups.  In a bowl I cracked an egg and whisked it up.  I chopped the bbq into small pieces and added it to the egg.  After drizzling a little coconut oil into the tomatoes and seasoning with a little sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, I divided the egg/bbq mixture into the tomatoes.  Lastly, I mixed together a little almond flour and coconut oil, making somewhat of a crumble.  The tomatoes were full and then some!  I topped them with the crumble and poured the residual egg from the bowl on top to help with the browning process.  For presentation’s sake, each tomato went into its own decorative ramekin, and I put them in a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes (it takes a while to get the eggs cooked through).

I heart pretty ramekins!

By this time, Korey had gotten out of bed (since I let him sleep in) and he had no idea what I had concocted.  He was so surprised and thrilled to have something new that I hadn’t made for him before.  He LOVED them!  So I was one happy wife!

After breakfast we lounged around for a bit.  I worked out and then he worked out and then we had our snacks together.  I had my usual sardines and cucumber lettuce wraps.  I threw together a plate of sliced ham, baby carrots and sunbutter for him.  While we snacked we watched Alton Brown discuss beets and all of their culinary greatness.  As usual, Alton spikes an interest in Korey to go and do whatever he’s done with whatever ingredient as soon as he can get his hands on it.  Today, as I mentioned, it was beets.  So, we finished up, got cleaned up and went to town to buy beets. 

That leads me to what I have planned for tonight.  I already said I’d be giving melon gazpacho a whirl, so I’ve got a fresh cantaloupe, a bag of tomatoes out of the garden, and a few other things that I’ll list in the recipe later.  I’m also going to steam the beets, slice them thinly on my mandolin, and drizzle them with some extra virgin olive oil and organic balsamic…maybe some crumbled feta and coarsely ground black pepper as well.  For the meat, I’m making a HUGE grass-fed hamburger steak (from Little Creek Ranch) with caramelized onions and a red wine reduction.  I think he will be very pleased!   It’ll be the best 27^th birthday meal he’s ever had!

It was almost too pretty to eat!

Garnished with a little fresh basil from my herb garden.

There's an 8 ounce hamburger steak under there somewhere!

Melon Gazpacho

Eight to 10 red tomatoes, seeded

2-3 cloves of garlic

One cantaloupe

One small, sweet onion

Extra virgin olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Sea salt

Pepper

Cut the melon in half and discard the seeds.  Scoop the flesh into a large bowl. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces and mix in the bowl with the melon.  I try to keep mainly the flesh without all of the watery parts and seeds.  Add the raw garlic cloves and the onion, roughly diced. Use a blender to process the mix until it has the consistency of a thick soup. Pour in the olive oil to taste. A liberal splash is best. Add a dash of balsamic vinegar, no more than a large tablespoon. Add salt and pepper and blend it all through one more time. You can eat the soup with this rough texture or sieve it for a smoother finish. Keep in the fridge for at least an hour before you eat it.  I served mine with a few pinches of shaved coconut and fresh parsley leaves for some fun and texture.  (A little coconut never hurt anyone!).  I hope you like this fresh summer starter.  I know Korey did!

San Diego...Paleo on the Road!

One of my biggest pet peeves is the excuse that eating Paleo is impossible when you travel.  I know for sure that this isn't the case, as I've traveled to many states now, through numerous airports and stayed in a myriad of cities, all while managing to maintain my usual, clean, Paleo-fabulous lifestyle.  The excuses usually come from folks that fail to plan and use traveling as a reason to eat crap since it's only "temporary" and they'll get back to "normal" when they get home.

Although traveling is only a once in a while kinda thing for Korey and me, there's a usual process that I go through to make sure that we can eat the way we want after we touch down and for the duration of our stay.  Airline tickets...CHECK.  Hotel room reserved...CHECK.  Closest Whole Foods or health food store within reasonable distance of hotel...CHECK.  Refrigerator reserved for hotel room to enable grocery preservation...CHECK.  All of this takes place in only a few minutes while sitting in front of a computer with a cell phone nearby.  DAMN, that was hard!  Whew...I think I broke a sweat...NOT!

So, we spent most of last week in San Diego, California.  Who could ask for an easier place to find and eat healthy food, right?!  (Even though a lot of the locals think eating healthy = cubed and marinated tofu teriyaki with a side of quinoa and lentil salad and a glass of freshly juiced wheat grass...buhhhhhh.)  We knew it'd be easy to find a Whole Foods that would have lots of local, organic veggies.  We also knew the restaurants in downtown San Diego would serve up some of the freshest caught seafood and fish you could imagine.  Luckily for me most of the restaurants downtown were more on the haute cuisine side which typically means you're paying more for the food and atmosphere, so the chefs are more likely to prepare things the way you'd like--even if you're loaded with a ton of allergies and "odd" food requests!

Touch down in San Diego, first stop after settling into the hotel...Whole Foods.  It was such a beautiful day that we decided to walk the 3.5 mile trek to get groceries--modern day hunter gatherers!  Let's just say we opted out of walking back since the following was what we ended up with on our WF hotel room haul:

Romaine hearts
Local cukes
Local zukes
Baby carrots
Jicama sticks
Avocados
Apples
Deli-sliced organic turkey
Coconut flakes
Sunbutter
Kombucha for the weekend (for me)
Zevia (for Korey)

We were hungry so we concocted some snacks off of the salad bar and we were ready to take the cab back to the room. 

I know what you're thinking...where's the protein in all of that?  To answer your question, that was part of my pre-departure planning.  Ten cans of sardines in water is an absolute STAPLE for me when I travel.  TSA doesn't really like them too much, but I've managed to get on a plane with them even after they've been removed from my carry-on, swabbed down and placed into a government-approved zip-top bag.

Breakfast, snacks and lunch had to be our of our fridge--for me anyway because while I was in conference, Korey could walk around San Diego and had time to catch meals out if he wanted.  Every morning I had a couple cans of sardines, cut up zucchini, a few baby carrots and a handful of coconut flakes.  Wash that down with some hot rooibos tea and I was good to go!

Snacks on my breaks:  jicama sticks or baby carrots with coconut flakes and plenty of water.  I was doing a lot of working out and needed to replenish.

Lunch was a typical go-to for me even when I'm at home.  I mix sardines with cut up cukes and make lettuce tacos with romaine hearts.  Top that off with more coconut flakes to make sure I'm getting in plenty of healthy fat, fiber and calories to get me through my long days.

Dinner was always out.  Nice restaurants.  Delish seafood.  There wasn't a single meal, I thought, that I didn't eat fish in one form or another--now you know that included breakfast as well!  I had the most beautiful baramundi at a place called Blue Pointe that was to DIE for!  Scrumptious white fish with a crispy skin, slightly fatty, buttery texture, served over a bed of local mixed greens and gingered julienned snow peas.  This was my favorite meal.

I know this meal plan for the trip doesn't sound too exciting for the majority of the meals I had.  But, the point is that while on the road and in a hotel I managed to eat within the same principles that I live within at home.  It wasn't hard, it just took a little planning on my part to make sure I would be prepared and able to eat that way.  For each restaurant we went to, we'd let the server know ahead of time of the food allergies that they needed to be aware of, and as I mentioned earlier, they took good care of us.  Was I embarrassed or ashamed, NO.  They took appropriate care of me...remember if I get sick after eating their food if they serve it to me without following my request, that's on their head.  Thus, they HAVE TO follow suit....and they did!

Fast forward to the end of the trip where we ended up spending umpteen hours in the airport due to horrific experiences with UNITED airlines.  (I won't even go there with that story...I don't have time, nor the patience to get into the whole ordeal.  Needless to say, it was AWEFUL!)  As you know airport food is exactly the opposite...not real FOOD.  When left to find something to eat after hours of forced fasting, I landed on GERBS roasted pumpkin seeds from the airport gift shop.  Good fat and fiber to hold me through until my next meal (little did I know it was going to be a LONG time until then!).

Breakfast the next morning was pistachios from the same gift shop.  Again when left to trying to find something to eat when all there is are fast food chains and kiosks full of processed crap, nuts seem to be the go-to.  At least I knew they'd hold me over for a good while.  They did. 

We ended up having to rent a car from D.C. and drive home (I told you it was AWEFUL!).  Once we got on the interstate, we pulled over to find an alternate, quicker route.  WHAT DO YA KNOW, a Trader Joe's!  It was snack time and we had found our mecca!  Sardines, baby zukes, some deli mustard and romaine leaves...YUM!  I was starving for protein.  Korey had some TJ's roasted turkey and a Larabar (his go-to snack item).  This was our last meal until we hit Chapel Hill, where we got food off the hot bar and salad bar for a late lunch.

Many lessons were learned on this trip...none of which pertain to eating on the road.  We know how to do it and that it can be done.  Put a little effort into it and it can be done.  The more you worry about it, the less time you end up planning.  I've always heard the saying if you fail to plan, you should just plan to fail.  It couldn't be truer when it comes to eating healthy when you travel.  You are in control of what goes in your mouth...remember that!

Sunday was a changing day in my life.  And, no, not like a Dr. Phil "it's gonna be a changing day in your life" kinda day.  This was an experience I never imagined I'd partake in, BUT I did.  I survived.  I enjoyed it.  And I'd do it again.  Period.

Above are 15 hens, roughly 2 years old.  These are the hens that once gave Korey and I our eggs.  These hens were raised by Ronnie, the man who we buy our grass-fed beef from.  Last week while at Ronnie's, stocking up our beef he mentioned to us that he was interested in getting rid of his hens as they were aging out of egg production and he needed to find them a home.  After talking with Korey about it when we left, we thought it was a great opportunity for us.  Of course, I'm thinking FREE MEAT--WHAT COULD BE BETTER...even though it would come at the price of having to slaughter them ourselves. 

We gave him a call this week and let him know we'd come by any day to get them.  Any day was yesterday.  We gathered the hens early in the morning, toted them up the road back to our house, prepped our shed for what was to come and got to it.  After a few hours of hard, dirty work, we had 15 hens stocking our deep freezer...well, 13...one went to dinner and one went to this week's batch of broth!

People might turn there noses up or question my decision to take the lives of these chickens in the manner that I did, but it wasn't inhumane, the chickens didn't suffer and we used every usable part of these beautiful birds that we could...nothing went to waste that could be eaten in one form or another (by us or our dogs for that matter).  I'll caution those that tend to be a little squemish, as the following set of photos may be a little much for some folks.  Keep in mind that these birds lived long lives on a farm, freely roaming and stress free.  They never suffered and were never tortured, even on the day that they gave their lives for our nourishment.  They were never confined, forced to live in such tight of quarters that they never learned to stand or walk.  Their beaks weren't cut off to prevent them from pecking and they weren't electricuted at their time of death. 

Which would you prefer to have placed in front of you on your dinner table?!

We took pictures of the entire process to document exactly what we had done for future reference since this was the first time in doing this for us.  I've left out the pics associated with the actual demise of the hens.  I'll admit it may be a little hard to look at, but I think back to the stories of my grandmother and how it was just a means of getting dinner on the table.  That's what gets me through...and the fact that I know there was no suffering involved.  Below you'll see me with the first bird to go into the water.  After they've been humanely killed, and drained of any remaining blood, the bird has to be immersed in 150-160 degree water for a period of 30-45 seconds.  This process makes the feathers come out with ease.

De-feathering the birds was actually my favorite part. They came out so easily. We were so surprised. When you're done, it almost looks like the whole fryers that you see in your local grocery store.

Dad and I took the reigns with the feathers while korey continued to prep the birds for the scalding process.

Here's the haul all fresh and clean of their feathers before the gutting...there's simply no other way to put it folks.  You have to get what's on the inside out, no matter how gross it may be.

Trying to figure out exactly how to start this part of the process was key.  You never want to make the wrong cut and end up contaminating the meat...this would easy to do since all of the "cleaning out" is done primarily from the business end of the bird.

As you can see in the pan on the right, some of the birds had "presents" left inside.  Out of the 15 hens that we cleaned, we harvested 3 ready-to-eat eggs.  Nature is such a wonderful thing, full of surprises!

These are all 15 hens, cleaned and ready to go inside to be prepped for the freezer.  We also saved the hearts, livers, and kidneys...and the FEET (smiley face!).  Andrew Zimmern would be proud of my willingness to try and find a use for chicken feet!

We're almost done with the process...if an only if the damn vaccum sealer decides not to act up!  It did fine, thank goodness!  Here I'm simply taking some tweezers and removing any remaining feather follicles, rinsing the hens and getting sealing bags.

This is what a long morning of hard farm work looks like!  We were so proud of ourselves and the best part about it is that we don't take our food for granted.  We know where it comes from, how it was raised and how it made it to our table.  I totally enjoyed the experience, learning what my grandparents considered second-nature.  Through the whole day I kept thinking how my Grandma Grace must be looking down on me and how happy she must be. 

Korey and I are very grateful for the food on our plates.  We can now say we know exactly where our beef comes from, where our pork comes from, where our chickens came from.  We have our own chickens for eggs now and meat later.  Korey and I hunt for dear and he hunts turkey.  We have fish in the two ponds on our property and we grow a plethora of veggies.  It couldn't be better than this!