Our Elimination Diet – 3 Weeks In (Video)

March 21, 2012 By TheOrganicSister

Hey all! Justin and I did another (goofy) video on our process through the elimination diet. We’re almost three weeks in and have just begun to add in foods.

P.S. I was wrong in the video. It’s not all meats we are waiting on, just red meats. We just looked at our food list and can start adding back in chicken and turkey (although we might wait just a bit longer).

Links for you:

Starting the elimination diet (our first video): This talks about our reasons and how we’re planning to do it, starting with the smoothie fast.

Phase One (our second video): Talking about how the smoothie detox went for us and moving onto phase one.

Downloadable food lists: We’re using these as our general guidelines, and leaning heavily on our own intuition.

Blueberry Cucumber Smoothie: This is the smoothie I’m drinking in the video and also is my favorite.

Herb Sunflower Dressing: This is the dressing that attacked me.

(If you’re coming to this post later you can access all our elimination diet posts here.)

Filed Under: Organic Health Tagged With: elimination diet, recipes, videos

Cajun Cooking Experiments

June 17, 2010 By TheOrganicSister

It seems we’re funny travelers…falling somewhere between feeling like we’re on vacation and resisting the urge to play a tourist. I feel like we’ve been so many places (some of which is already running together) and met so many people (some of whom I’m blanking on their names) and yet we haven’t done very much. We haven’t explored local scenes, delved into local cultures or really investigated our stops.

Thankfully, I also feel like that is changing.

We’re slowing down, not allowing some predetermined date to rush us along the road, taking more back routes and discovering new, amazing, beautiful or just plain fun things along the way. I suppose the first three and a half months have been about growing accustomed to the RV, the regular movement, the new rituals or climates or people in and out of our lives. And now, as we fall into a (albeit somewhat unrecognizable) routine, the country seems to be opening itself to us more…or we to it, truthfully.

While in Louisiana I was inspired (partially by the crawfish) to try my hand at more Cajun foods. Being on a budget means very little eating out for us, but Google is a good friend, and although I have nothing to compare my meals to and didn’t actually make the attempts until we had left Louisiana, I had fun all the same.

One thing I found I liked: Most Cajun recipes seemed to be gluten-free (someday I want to post a gluten-free update, but today is not that day). However, they also call for meats that are very hard to find sustainably raised. We made a couple compromises, of which my stomach regretted. Apparently, once you go grass-fed you can’t go back.

The two recipes I attempted and enjoyed: Crock Pot Jambalaya and Smoked Sausage something or other (minus the call for “processed cheese” and with fresh, diced tomatoes from a “neighbor’s” garden instead of canned). Both were yummy, not spicy at all or even enough, easy to make and easy to clean up. But the Smoked Sausage concotion pictured above was my favorite – one skillet (not including the rice), simple ingredients, and (if I can find a healthy source of sausage) very likely to be made again.

Local, yummy, gluten-free…and best of all, new, experimental, and interesting. For Justin and me anyway. Zeb prefers mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches these days.

Filed Under: Life on the Road, Organic Health Tagged With: food, locavore, louisiana, recipes, skillet recipes, summer recipes

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Pancakes

April 26, 2010 By TheOrganicSister

I’ve been really off my gluten-free diet lately, but I shared this gluten-free oatmeal pancake recipe with Sara recently and thought I should share it with you guys, as well.

This recipe is not only for those with gluten-sensitivity, it is also for you Real Foodies and Weston A. Pricer’s who know the benefits of soaking grains and pastured eggs.

Oats are technically gluten-free but will affect some gluten-sensitive or celiac folk, mostly because of cross-contamination in processing. There are certified gluten-free oats, such as Bob’s Red Mill, if you are extremely sensitive but I use regular oats with no problem.

Gluten-Free Oatmeal Pancakes

4 cups whole oats, ground (preferably not the quick cook kind)
4 cups plain yogurt (I’ve also used whole raw milk)
4 tablespoons melted butter
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2-4 tablespoons local raw honey (optional)
Olive oil or butter for cooking (optional)

I grind my oats in the blender. You can also use a food processor. You want it ground as fine as you can get it.

Mix the oats in the yogurt or milk and let it soak overnight (from 12-24 hours).
Add the butter, eggs, sea salt, baking soda and optional honey and mix very well.
Cook over a medium-low heat. I like to cook them in a bit of olive oil or butter for a slightly crispier edge or you can use a griddle. The temperature seems to vary depending on the pan, so experiment with yours. Oatmeal pancakes do cook slower, and are easy to burn with a gooey center, so take your time!

Thanks to Amy for giving me this recipe months ago! She also told me you can substitute the butter for coconut oil and the milk for water plus 2 T whey, lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, but it will affect the taste.

Usually these turn out fluffy and light; sometimes not. I think it depends on how finely the oats are ground, and how long or in what they were soaked (using alternatives to yogurt tends to affect the results the most). They also work well as sandwich bread or hamburger buns, too! I don’t feel they save well for longer than a few days; they tend to get denser as they age.

As I’ve said, I’ve been off my gluten-free diet lately. Have any yummy recipes to get me back on track?

Filed Under: Organic Health Tagged With: breakfast recipes, food, gluten-free, locavore, recipes

Easy Homemade Butter

July 20, 2009 By TheOrganicSister

I learned how to make homemade butter today.
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Well, technically I learned how to do it over a year ago but today was the first time I put my homemade butter-making knowledge to the test. I have no fancy equipment and no churn and that’s just the kind of kitchen work I like.

I’ve been wanting raw butter for its healthy properties. It’s so incredibly easy to make once you know what you’re doing. Which took me a minute. But I did it! Here’s what’s needed:

Room Temperature Cream: Raw and organic is my favorite kind of dairy but any sort should work. Just about any amount will work. My half pint of cream made almost a half pound of butter along with a cup or more of buttermilk (I spilled it before I measured it so I’m not positive).
Canning jars: Bigger is better or several is necessary. The cream shouldn’t take up more than 1/3 of the space in the jar.
Colander or similar
A bowl or two
1/2 Teaspoon of salt per pound of butter (optional)
A knife and rubber spatula also come in handy

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Here’s how to make raw homemade butter:

I bought a (half pint? I don’t know) of raw cream, dumped it into a canning jar and tightly twisted on the cap.
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Then I started to shake the living bejeezus out of it. I did a variety of shakes; including but not limited to a hammering motion, a side-lying left/right shake, a Half-Circle Twist, the My-Arms-Are-Getting-Tired Whole Body Wiggle, and what can only be described as Neck Throttling. I’d suggest a similar variety of shakes to avoid muscle fatigue.

Around minute two I began to see that making butter on a day I had not attempted pushups would have been a better idea. This was also about the time the consistency changed from a liquidy sloshing, to a foamy sloshing. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Around minute TWENTY-FIVE I began to think I was doing something wrong. I was most certainly not suppose to be doing a cardio workout, was I? So I one-handedly splashed that jar around while I did a quick search through my books and web resources.

That’s when I discovered the action known as “butter concussion”. I’m not making this up. Without adequate room in the jar you cannot give your butter the concussion it needs to separate from the buttermilk. So I split the cream between two jars.
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No joke, within 60 seconds of continued shaking the sound changed from a slosh to a splash and the butter separated from the buttermilk and no longer coated the jar. I shook it up a bit more to produce a slightly firmer, but still pretty soft and spreadable butter. The more you shake after that moment of separation, the firmer it will be. (Too much shaking is supposed to produce a waxy butter, so be careful. I only shook for another 30-60 seconds out of fear of screwing this up.)
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Then it was time to strain the buttermilk from the butter. With the assistence of Zeb’s LEGO as a support, I used a colander over a cereal bowl to allow the buttermilk to drain.
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I rinsed my homemade butter under cold, running water for a minute or two, threw it in a bowl to mix it around while occasionally pouring off any excess water and added a bit less than 1/4 teaspoon of salt into the mix.

That was it! If it weren’t for my mistake in using a too-small jar, the entire process would’ve only taken about 15-20 minutes, much of which can be done doing anything that doesn’t require the use of your hands. (I read our Fact-of-the-Day calendar while I did most of my shaking.)
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Zeb, aka the Butter King, declared it “The Best Butter Ever” which is really something coming from his choosy taste buds. We ate it the only way homemade butter should be eaten: on freshly baked bread. Mmmm…

Just to recap: How to Make Homemade Butter in 5 Easy Steps

1. Throw your room temperature cream into a jar, filling it only 1/3 of the way.

2. Shake it until it goes from a foam sloshy sound to a definitive splash. At this point you’ll see buttermilk and a clumb of butter.

3. Drain the buttermilk and rinse the butter under running water, being sure to drain the water out.

4. If you prefer salt, mix it into the homemade butter at a ratio of 1/2 teaspoon per pound of butter.

5. Eat it fast before someone else does!

Filed Under: Organic Health, Organic Living Tagged With: DIY, food, homemade, locavore, Real Food, recipes

Homemade Vanilla Extract

May 13, 2009 By TheOrganicSister

Homemade vanilla extract is the best. And the cheapest! With what we’d spend to buy a few ounces of vanilla extract at the store, we made two large jars full. (Over a year later and we and others are still have barely made a dent!)

One ounce of vanilla beans, sliced open (we bought ours here)
One L of vodka or bourbon (any cheap brand will do)
Two quart-size mason jars

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Add the alcohol to the jars and the vanilla to the alcohol. Shake on occasion. Don’t take the beans out. Do your best to keep your cocktail-lovin’ husband out of it for at least 6 weeks or until it smells scumptious.
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Enjoy more vanilla extract than you will ever use in a lifetime. Bottle some up, with a bean thrown in for pizazz and give it away as a gift. Use it in your homemade toothpaste recipe. Or enjoy a nekkid game of Vanilla Shots and Ladders.
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(P.S. Once the jar is half-full, you can add more vodka and start shaking again.)
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