The Nourished Kitchen

10 Tips for Real Food Newbies

Jenny — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:25:36 PDT

If you’re just starting out, just learning and baby-stepping away from packaged and boxed foods into a diet based on wholesome, natural traditional foods, those first few weeks (months? years?) can feel daunting at best, and completely impossible at worst. It’s hard, especially if you were raised on Lean Cuisine, Pop Tarts and Crystal Light. Never mind the conflicting information in the media: the government tells you to stick to low fat, but recently published studies illustrate the importance of high quality fats – including butter. While Nourished Kitchen focuses exclusively on real foods, traditionally prepared to maximize nutrition, the site really centers around the pleasure of cooking – and for those just starting out, just giving up the frozen suppers and drive-thrus, it’s not enough to share recipes or techniques; rather, you need more practical and hands-on advice. So here it is. Print it out and pin it to your fridge, because it’s a good one – and I promise not to wax poetic about the luxury of raw cream or a freshly picked peach still warm from the sun – that is, until the next post. And if you want even more comprehensive guidance, check out Real Food for Rookies, a new online class from Kelly the Kitchen Kop covering everything from reading labels, to cooking healthy meals even the pickiest of spouses and kids will love. She even features exclusive interviews with leaders in the traditional foods movement like Sally Fallon Morrell of the Weston A Price Foundation and Dr. Kaayla Daniel, author of the Whole Soy Story – something even long-time real food enthusiasts can appreciate.

1. Learn to read labels, really read them.

My first bit advice to anyone learning how to ditch processed foods and cook from scratch is simple: learn to read labels. When you take the time to actually read labels thoroughly, you’ll find crazy words like disodium guanylate, TBHQ (a form of butane – that’s lighter fluid!), MSG (a neurotoxin), artificial colors, nitrates and nitrites, BHA and BHT, and others. Taking the time to read labels, and then follow up on the ingredients you don’t immediately recognize is often enough to prevent you from tossing those foods into your shopping basket. After all, who wants to serve up a plate of food laced with lighter fluid, neurotoxins and known human carcinogens to their children? (...)
Click here to read the rest of 10 Tips for Real Food Newbies (1,011 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: No comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

A Scholarship Opportunity: Real Food for Rookies

Jenny — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:33:46 PDT

There’s a lot of talk about real food – about growing your own, about ditching the boxes and packages and about shopping farmers markets. Real food has swept the nation; better yet, more and more people are beginning to better understand the values behind traditional foods and native nutrition – those foods that nourished your ancestors and helped them to

For many people, giving up decades of eating processed foods and microwavable meals in effort to provide healthier and better alternatives for their family is a challenging prospect. Worse yet, after jumping through that first hurdle and finally making the transition to organic meats and milks and other foods, families learn that industrial organic alternatives may not be all that much better for them than conventional foods – what they really need is grass-fed, local foods. For those that truly want to make that transition from the Standard American Diet to real and traditional foods, that epiphany seems to open up an entirely new conundrum: Just how do you make that transition happen? Just how do you find fresh raw milk from good quality farms when you live in the city? How do learn to read labels and what do you look for? And if liver is oh-so-good-for-you, how on earth do you get your kids and husband to eat it?

A good friend of mine, and a fellow real food blogger, Kelly of Kelly the Kitchen Kop, is launching a 12-week online class designed to help guide families into making that transition from the standard American diet into a more traditional, nourishing diet featuring real foods. I love Kelly for her down-to-earth attitude and that lovely midwestern charm only a mother of four rambunctious kids can cultivate. Where I wax poetic about the flavor of melted butter on fresh sole, or the humble luxury of rendering lard on the stove top, Kelly tells real families like yours just how to actually get it done with her down-to-earth and matter-of-fact grace.

Her class, Real Food for Rookies, features twelve weeks of stunning content all designed to teach you how to get your kids and family off the packaged foods and back onto food the way nature intended. From videos outlining how to read labels to avoid excitotoxins and all those ingredients that contribute to hyperactivity, learning disabilities and depression to practical tips on avoiding refined sugars and cooking healthy foods in big batches. She even features audio interviews with some of the most influential experts in the traditional foods movement such as Sally Fallon Morrell and Dr. Kaayla Daniel.

I’ve been talking with Kelly a lot about her class, and the critical value it can offer many families who are just learning to ditch those prepackaged pseudofoods and center their lives around healthier, natural real foods. Graciously, Kelly has offered a scholarship to Real Food for Rookies for a Nourished Kitchen reader and his or her friend. You just have to contact me explaining who you think deserves to win the scholarship, and why.

So if you know of someone who really wants to steer away from the junk and learn to cook more healthy foods, nominate them. If you know a mom who’s desperate to get her kids and husband to eat real food, nominate her. If you know of a young couple who is just now starting out their lives together, nominate them. Everyone can learn from this class.

Win Real Food for Rookies for You and a Friend

Contact me no later than Thursday at NOON Mountain Time and, in 300 to 500 words, explain who in your life would most benefit from Kelly’s Real Food for Rookies.
Kelly and I and a few other folks will examine the entries and select one as the winner.
I will announce the winner here, including his or her essay (by permission) on this post Friday.
So take a look at Kelly’s course and let me know who you feel would most benefit from her class.

Notice of disclosure.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: One comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

A Recipe: Miso Soup with Clams

Jenny — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:43:42 PDT

Miso Soup with Clams is one of those special foods – simple and quiet and humble, but also elegant in its simplicity. Sometimes the best dishes are the simplest. In our home, broths and stocks form the foundation of many of our meals, and with good reason. Broths and stocks are potently rich sources of trace minerals and, when made from bones and other nutritive animal foods that are too often relegated to the refuse pile in modern kitchens, can also be rich in glucosamine chondroitin, glycine, collagen and other nutrients that are otherwise difficult to come by. Indeed, a good broth offers many benefits. In the summertime, when the days are long and hot and standing over a boiling stockpot seems otherwise unappealing, we make the effort to eat broth daily or every other day, but in winter when drifts of snow can climb as high as second story windows, we make the effort to drink broth with every meal whether in soup or stew, as a liquid for braising vegetables, in reduction sauces and gravies or even on its own. So this miso soup with clams, simple ingredients dressed in a fine Japanese-style fish and seaweed broth, is yet another simple incarnation of the many ways we love to enjoy and celebrate the nutritive value of a good broth. (You can always skip to the recipe. It’s a good one.)

Miso soup with clams, just as any good Japanese soup does, begins with dashi – a fine and clear broth made from bonito and kombu. Bonito is a member of the tuna family, skipjack tuna in particular, and it is gently smoked and fully dried. Its flavor, thanks to the process of smoking, is faintly reminiscent of bacon. In Japan, and in very good quality Asian markets, you can find the smoked and dried bonito or katsuoboshi sold in dark firm blocks. And just as a Tuscan farmer might shave off a bit of prosciutto ham to flavor a dish, Japanese cooks shave the katsuoboshi to season broth and other dishes. Kombu, the second ingredient in dashi, is a member of the kelp family and it is sold in long, brittle strips which can be subsequently rehydrated. Both the kombu and bonito impart their distinct flavors to dashi and are essential in making a good miso soup. You can find bonito flakes and dried kombu in any well-stocked health food store or Asian grocer.(...)
Click here to read the rest of A Recipe: Miso Soup with Clams (710 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 12 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

A Recipe (and Coupon): Brine Pickled Garlic Scapes

Jenny — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:18:07 PDT

Brine-pickled garlic scapes, a near-perfect example of waste-not, want-not thinking, makes excellent use of a seemingly obscure food – one cherished only by gardeners and only the most enthusiastic of farmers market goers: the humble garlic scape. The garlic scape, a long and serpentine stem that protrudes from garlic as it grows before opening into a pale, green-white flower bud is one of those rare delicacies you simply won’t find in a grocery store. In the spring and early summer, garlic growers cut down these shoots sending the plant’s energy that would spring upward toward the sky down into the bulb, fattening it like a goose fed on figs and nuts before landing on a lucky family’s Christmas table.

Like broccoli, nasturtiums and artichokes, garlic scapes number among a handful of plants that we eat consume in flower form. The stems, even when harvested young, can be brittle and tough and are best sautéed and used in place of cloves of garlic in various dishes, but the flowers themselves can be quite tender and are pleasantly garlicky when eaten fresh and raw. I like to ferment them, just as I do with so many vegetables, not only because I value the role that lactic acid fermentation plays in our cross-cultural culinary heritage as well as its critically important function in improving the nutrient profile of the foods we eat, but also because it’s an almost magical process: something fresh and fragile that could so easily putrefy and turn inedible is transformed through the action of beneficial microorganisms into something quite different. Those fresh foods are transformed into this state of extended, even nearly permanent, life, and that’s a beautiful thing.

In making these pickled garlic scapes, or any naturally fermented vegetable, you need so very little: a crock, some salt, a starter. After all, naturally preserved and fermented foods like these are peasant foods – borne of a way to extend the harvest from summer’s bounty well into the deep, dark and cold days of winter when nothing grows and cupboards are otherwise bare. In our quest for easy fixes, strictly formulaic and reliable results, we’ve forgotten the lost arts. We’ve given up the unpredictable excitement and slow process of brine pickling in favor of the stalwart reliability and nearly instantaneous process of vinegar pickling. I, for one, prefer my foods wild and unpredictable, strange and variable and undeniably traditional.

Fermentation is not an exact science. Indeed, so little of cooking is an exact science for when a cook is caught up teaspoons and kitchen timers, it’s easy to become so distracted by precision that she’ll forget to lose herself to the art, pleasure and rhythm of preparing food. Vegetable fermentation can be unpredictable, and that’s okay; rather, not only is it simply okay, but it’s one of the best aspects of reviving this lost tradition for its that variable and unpredictable nature that protracts the excitement and anticipation of cooking, and therein lies a true pleasure. And while no one wants to spend good money for unpredictable results, there are a few things that you can do to maximize the art of preparing vegetable ferments at home:

It’s about surface area. When the surface are of the vegetable you’re fermenting is greater, use a starter to improve your ferment. For example, a garlic scape or a whole cucumber has a greater surface are than a shred of cabbage. Using a starter culture to inoculate your ferment will help to boost the likelihood that ferment will succeed, limiting the chance that things will go awry due to contamination. Many people use fresh whey to start their ferments, but I tend to use a purchased vegetable starter culture (see sources) when I’m not fermenting a shredded vegetable, because it’s easy and I’m happy with the results every time. You certainly don’t have to use one, and many a good ferment is done through the wild method.
Use a crock or jar fitted with a carboy. I’ve fermented many a vegetable using only a mason jar or a ceramic bowl and weighted plate, but using the appropriate fermentation device can reduce the likelihood, however small, that your batch will go awry. I use large gallon-sized glass jars fitted with carboys, and am saving up for a nice ceramic Harsch fermentation crock. These jars and crocks are specifically designed for fermentation. Consider this, would you use a cast iron skillet to boil pasta? Sure, you could, in theory, but that doesn’t mean the skillet is optimal. So to with your equipment: yes, a mason jar works, but it’s not necessarily optimal. If you’re serious about preserving the harvest through vegetable fermentation, save your money and pick up the right equipment.
Be relaxed about time. Sometimes a ferment takes a week, sometimes only a few days. Sometimes, it takes months to get a good and complexly flavored sauerkraut. Many factors play into the length of time it takes to bring your kimchi, sour pickles or pickled garlic scapes to perfection: the ambient temperature of your home, the season, the freshness of your vegetables, the use (or lack) of a starter culture, your family’s preferences. So keep your eye on them, and use the time frame given in recipes as a guideline, not a strict rule. Similarly, storing vegetable ferments is also fairly relaxed. I’ve had sour beets last for two years – until we finally gobbled them all up. I have a jar of preserved lemons that’s lurked in my fridge for two and a half years and its no worse for the time. The general rule is this: if it looks bad, smells bad or tastes bad, it probably is bad. Other than that, relax a little: those wee beasties lurking in our sauerkrauts, sauerrübens and pickled garlic scapes are good for us.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in getting started preserving vegetables at home through lactic acid fermentation, you might want to check out this email from the preserve the bounty challenge hosted here at Nourished Kitchen. As a quick note, for those of you who threw your name into the hat for the recent giveaway of the ultimate fermentation kit, we’ve announced the winner, but everyone can still take advantage of the discount.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Choose just the tenderest and youngest flowers for these pickled garlic scapes, leaving the scape's woody stem for use in a naturally probiotic, fermented relish or to use fresh. These pickled scapes are strongly flavored and deeply robust with garlic flavor. You can always add spices to the mixture as well, dill and bay do nicely, but garlic lovers will revel in the simple combination of scape, salt and starter.

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Ingredients

about 1 1/2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
1 package vegetable starter culture (see sources) OR 1/4 cup fresh whey, if desired
enough garlic scapes, trimmed with woody stems removed, to fit in a 1-quart jar

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Equipment

vegetable fermentation master OR crock (see sources)

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Method

Stir sea salt and starter culture or whey together with one quart fresh, filtered and dechlorinated water until the salt and starter culture are dissolved into the water completely.
Pack your crock or fermentation master full of trimmed garlic scapes.
Pour the mixture of water, salt and starter over the scapes, ensuring that they're completely covered by the brine.
Ferment at room temperature for at least a week, preferably two or even three or four (fermentation is not an exact science), as it suits you.
Once the scapes have pickled to your liking, remove them to the refrigerator or a cool cellar for storage.

YIELD: 1 quart

TIME: about 5 minutes (preparation), 1 to 4 weeks (fermentation)

Giveaway: Win $140 in Grass-fed Meat & Snacks for Your Next BBQ

Jenny — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:58:07 PDT

Summer’s last hurrah, Labor day, is fast approaching and, before the heat of summer gives way to the chill of autumn, I wanted to celebrate grilling season with one last, big bang: a giveaway for all those readers who, like me, can appreciate not only the flavor and richness of a good grass-finished steak, but also the vital role that real meat plays in nurturing and nourishing human health. No, I don’t believe in demonizing any real, unprocessed and traditionally prepared food, and, yes, I do believe that meat is good for you.

So for all of you, who like me, can appreciate a good grass-finished steak, barely seared, or a slice of real cheese from grass-fed cows, this post is for you. As a follow up to yesterday’s post covering my very favorite, tried-and-true homemade barbecue sauce recipe, I’ve teamed up with US Wellness Meats who produces grass-finished and pasture-raised meats to offer this giveaway: an end-of-summer BBQ package featuring ribeye steaks, burgers and franks for the grill as well as a appetizer platter of cheddar cheese, sprouted walnuts, berry trail mix and summer sausage for your guests to enjoy while they wait. Best yet, it’s all grass-finished just the way real food ought to be produced. I’d be insanely jealous if I didn’t have pounds and pounds of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats lurking in my freezer just waiting to be thawed and grilled for labor day picnics.

If you’re stuck on just how grass-fed meats are different, check out this post covering the difference between grass-fed and CAFO-raised meat, or learn how to pan-fry a great steak.

The Nitty Gritty Details

The Prize ($140 Value!)

Four Grass-Fed Ribeye Steaks (15 oz. average each)
2 Pkgs. Ground Beef Patties (2/pk.)
Grass-Fed Beef Summer Sausage
Grass-Fed Beef Franks (6/pk.)
Organic Grass-Fed Cheddar Cheese
Organic, Raw, Sprouted Walnuts
Organic Berry Powerful Trail Mix

How to Enter

Anyone is welcome to enter who is over the age of 18 and resides in the United States, provided doing so does not violate any local laws of your place of residency. If you are currently using an adblocker, please disable it so that you can participate in this giveaway (besides, you’re actually missing out on content when viewing Nourished Kitchen with an active ad blocker). For those reading this post in a feed reader or by email, if you wish to enter, please click through to the actual post to add your name to the mix.

7 Ways to Enter

You MUST enter through the US Wellness Meats website first. Your entries will not otherwise count unless you first sign up through US Wellness Meats: .
There are seven ways to enter and up to a maximum of ten entries per person. Please remember that for your entry to count, you must leave a separate comment for every entry you make.

DO THIS FIRST (REQUIRED):

Comment on this post, telling me who you’d invite to your grass-fed BBQ and why (1 extra entry).
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen newsletter sent weekly (come on … 8,000 other real food lovers can’t be wrong!) (1 extra entry)
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen RSS feed by email. (2 extra entries)

Already Love Nourished Kitchen and Get it Anyway You Can?

Don’t worry, just leave a comment for every applicable entry to be counted. Part of subscribing to, fanning and following Nourished Kitchen is participating in goodies and giveaways like this one, but don’t forget to leave a comment for every which way you happen to connect.

Four Reasons You Should Enter Right Now

Because it’s completely free to enter, all it takes is about five minutes of your time.
Because $140 worth of seriously good, healthy meats is something everyone can use.
Because when you enter this contest, clicking on the link above to US Wellness Meats, you support Nourished Kitchen which enables me to keep bringing you great content, and loads more real food recipes.
Because everyone who enters gets a coupon code when the winner is announced – meaning you’ll all save a little something for participating.

The Announcement

The winner will be announced on this post and to all participants with valid email addresses by noon on Thursday, September 2nd Mountain Time. The winner will be drawn by Random.org and contacted after noon on Monday, September 2nd Mountain Time. The winner has twenty-four hours to respond before another is chosen.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 926 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

A Recipe: BBQ Sauce That’s Hot, Sweet and Black as Sin

Jenny — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:25:51 PDT

Homemade barbecue sauce, sweet, hot and full of rich flavor, is one of our favorite indulgences. One of the last opportunities for summer barbecues lurks just around the corner, and we’re preparing for labor day by planning our last big picnic of the season: grass-fed brisket with homemade barbecue sauce, fresh tomato salad, plenty of sour pickles, grilled sweet corn, mixed potato salad with mizuna, blackberry ice cream with wildflower honey with a long draught of lemony, gingery water kefir to wash it all down. And we’ll break out the slip-n-slide and the music and the good times, celebrating the warmth of the summer sun one last time before the snows begin to hit again in a few weeks.

We like a barbecue sauce to be bold and rich and not for the faint of heart. After spending years looking for a good additive-, preservative-free barbecue sauce made from organic ingredients, we began making our own. It took a lot of trial and error to come up with a decent homemade barbecue sauce, but, eventually we settled on this one: a combination of tomato paste, molasses, unrefined cane sugar, onion, garlic and chipotle chilies. If you’re a touch faint of palate (or just don’t like breaking into beads of sweat as you eat your meal), go slowly in adding the chili powder. We love to slather this homemade barbecue sauce over grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork or even over a spatchcock chicken on the grill.

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

A combination of molasses, chipotle chili and tomato, this homemade barbecue is hot, sweet and black as sin. Pastured lard and fish sauce might seem, at first, like odd additions, but both help to flesh out the rich and complex flavor of the sauce. Take care to add the chipotle chili powder slowly, tasting along the way, lest you overseason the sauce – making it unbearably hot. Unless, of course, you’re culinary masochists and you like the lingering pain of a torturously hot sauce (like me).

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Ingredients

2 to 3 tablespoons pastured lard, bacon fat or coconut oil
1 small onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup tomato paste, preferably homemade
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup blackstrap molasses
1 cup whole, unrefined evaporated cane juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
up to 2 tablespoons chipotle chili powder

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Equipment

saucepan
woodenspoon
quart-sized mason jar with lid

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Method

Melt up to three tablespoon pastured lard, bacon fat or coconut oil over a medium flame, then toss in the minced onion and garlic.
Fry the minced onion and garlic in the hot fat until fragrant and translucent. Allow its edges to caramelize a bit.
Reduce the heat to low, then spoon about 1/4 cup tomato paste into the saucepan. Take care because the tomato paste could splatter in the hot fat.
Stir one cup molasses, one cup whole unrefined evaporated cane juice and two tablespoons fish sauce into the tomato paste. Continue to stir the sauce together until the molasses completely dissolves into the tomato paste and the sauce becomes uniform in color.
Stir unrefined sea salt, onion powder and garlic powder into the sauce and continue to stir until the flavorings are fully dissolved in the sauce.
Gently and incrementally spoon the chipotle chili powder into the sauce, tasting it periodically and adding only as much heat as you can handle. Remember, the heat of the chili powder will increase as the sauce cooks and ages, so it may be wise to under-season it.
Continue to cook over a low flame for another twenty minutes, taking care not to let the sauce bubble.
Pour the sauce into a quart-sized mason jar and place it in the refrigerator.
Allow the flavors to marry for at least a day before you plan to serve the homemade barbecue sauce.

YIELD: about 1 quart

TIME: about 30 minutes (preparation and cooking), 24 hours to set

NOTE: While you can serve it immediately, this homemade barbecue sauce can really benefit from a day to allow the flavors to marry. If you serve it too soon, you will be able to distinctly identify the sauce’s prominent flavors individually: molasses, tomato, fish sauce, but by allowing it to rest for a day before you plan to serve it, those dominant flavors will mellow a bit as they marry together for a strikingly sweet and hot barbecue sauce. It will keep, refrigerated, for six months or longer.

10 Things I Learned from the First Lesson of Surf & Turf

Jenny — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:19:28 PDT

I’ve been following Surf & Turf, the new class hosted by Ann Marie Michaels and while Surf & Turf ostensibly acts as a coking class, its real value lies in more than learning how to braise meats, fire up a grill, serve wild-caught shellfish and prepare a palatable liver; indeed, the class focuses on the value of protein for our bodies – the essential nature of amino acids to our health, of omega-3 fatty acids to our children and the value of nutrient-dense foods overall. So on Wednesday, as soon as Ann Marie posted the first lesson in Surf & Turf, I was at my computer watching the posted videos which discussed the role of traditional, nutrient-dense diets play in our moods and in keeping our bodies free from disease.

Here’s the top ten things I learned from watching the first lesson:

Don’t worry, if you missed the first lesson you can still catch up by registering by this Saturday.

The nation is depressed. The American public is 100 times more depressed than we were a century ago.
Depression disables and kills. Depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States, and by the World Health Organization estimates it will be the leading cause of death by 2020.
The nation is overfed and undernourished. When Dr. Price analyzed the diets of traditional peoples and compared them to the standard diet among Americans of his time, he found that they were four times richer in minerals like calcium and ten times richer in fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K₂.
We’re operating at a nutritional loss, and that’s affecting our moods and emotional well-being. When our brains are replete with amino acids and good quality nutrition, we feel great and can better cope with the stresses, rigors and losses that life casts our direction. When we’re operating at that nutritional loss, as so many of us are, we lose this innate capacity of human emotional function.
Food can fix what drugs can’t. We’re suffering from a lack of neurotransmitters in the brain, causing cravings for food and drugs and poor moods, and we can fix that problem with real food. Foods rich in proteins contain precursors for these neurotransmitters.
Caffeine leads to depression. Caffeine is one of the most powerful anti-serotinin drugs in existence.
To nourish our brains, we need to eat more protein. Julia Ross, a pioneer in the field of nutritional psychotherapy, estimates that we need 25 to 30 grams of high quality protein at each meal to properly fuel the brain.
Most of our calories should come from high quality fats. Despite the USDA’s lip service paid to the whole-grain mantra, traditional diets are largely founded on wholesome and nutrient-dense fats. We should consume real fats like butter, pastured lard, grass-fed beef tallow, cream, egg yolks and other forms of animal fat just like our ancestors did before chronic disease prevailed.
More than 500,000 people die of cancer each year. Nutrient-dense diets rich in enzymes, and vitamins have provided successful treatments for cancer for many people. For some people, fast oxiders, this means lots of protein including red meat and plenty of wholesome fats.
Omega-3 fatty acids boost IQ and battle depression. Studies indicate that maternal intake of fish oil, high in omega-3 fatty acids, boosts offspring’s brain development while other studies indicate that omega-3 fatty acids can help to ward off depression.

If you’d like to register for the full, 12-week class, you can still do so through Saturday or contact me for a coupon code. In the meantime, you can catch a quick segment of the first lesson below:

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 5 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

Preserve the Bounty: Week #3

Jenny — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:07:49 PDT

It’s week #3 of the Keep the Harvest Challenge at Nourished Kitchen and we’re working our way through August by ditching our canners, and brushing up on old-world, traditional techniques for food preservation. Our first week was all about fermentation – the magical transformation of fresh food into pickled through the function of beneficial microorganisms. If you missed the first week of the challenge, check out the first week and second week, and make sure you’re signed up. Also, don’t forget to sign up to win the ultimate fermentation kit from Cultures for Health which will help you ferment your way through summer’s bounty.

In our home, for week two we put up more wild mushroom butter and even marinated eggplant with a combination of red wine vinegar, olive oil and fresh herbs. This added to our batches of sauerkraut and other lacto-fermented foods from week #1. We’ve already had some great posts from Preserve the Harvest participants like Vindee from Passionate about Baking who cured slow-roasted tomatoes and the folks at Central Washington’s Local Food Shed who also combined tomatoes and olive oil.

Remember, if you’re participating in Preserve the Bounty, please check out the forums and the thread here.

If you missed the sign up period for this month’s challenge to preserve the bounty without canning, go see the original post and sign up for the email updates. There’s over 600 people participating, we added over 100 last week!

In the mean time, if you took up the call and put up a batch of good food last week through the traditional method of oil curing, link up via Simply Linked below, or post your successes in the comments section on this post:

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 11 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

Giveaway: Win the Ultimate Fermentation Kit (seriously)

Jenny — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:32:38 PDT

This giveaway is now closed, and the winner is Jenn W who’ll be crocking up a batch of beet sauetkraut in no time! In the mean time, Cultures for Health is offering Nourished Kitchen readers a great discount. .

I love fermentation, the whole entire process: the mysterious and nearly magical way invisible microbes transform fresh foods into vibrant, enzyme- and vitamin-rich culinary delights that last nearly forever in cold storage. I love pounding my way through heads of cabbage, seasoning them with ginger and chili peppers for kimchi or with carrots and scallions and serrano peppers for curtido. I love seasoning the brine for sour pickles and sprinkling salt into the centers of Moroccan preserved lemons. And for those of you who’ve participated in this month’s Preserve the Bounty Challenge, you’re already well on your way to learning the lost arts of traditional vegetable preservation methods like fermentation. Besides, the process of lactic acid fermentation is not only time-honored, earning steadfast esteem in the traditional culinary heritage of cultures across the globe, it is also one of the most important aspects of healthy cooking anyone can master. The mere act of fermentation drastically improves the nutritive qualities of the foods we consume – which is why they’re featured with fair frequency at Nourished Kitchen.

I am so excited about this giveaway and, if I can be truly honest, a bit jealous … a bit covetous, because Cultures for Health has put together an impressive kit for one Nourished Kitchen reader: two vegetable fermentation masters, the famed book Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz, Caldwell’s vegetable starter culture, a mandolin slicer and Celtic sea salt. It took me a long time to acquire, over the years, all these individual items and I’d have saved an awful lot of failed krauts and pickles if I’d had the good luck to find the materials altogether in one place. From the very beginning of my journey into real and traditional foods, I’d followed Sandor Katz’s legendary book: Wild Fermentation which now lays dog-eared on my nightstand (yes … I read cookbooks in bed, and in the bath but, curiously, not in the kitchen). Then I found vegetable fermentation masters which are simple glass jars equipped with an airlock and this combination ensures more even and reliable ferments. I’ve used mine to make sauerkrauts, cucumber pickles, preserved lemons, probiotic apple and beet relish, sour turnips, sour beets, pickled daikon radish and many other vegetable ferments. I’ve even used it successfully to brew wild mead (and I can’t wait to share that recipe with you). Most recently, thanks to Cultures for Health, I’ve discovered the Caldwell’s vegetable fermentation starter which I love and use more readily now. I’d always been one for wild ferments, eschewing the addition of whey, but I’ve really enjoyed the addition of a vegetable starter culture in many of my recent ferments.

And of course, if you’re ever stuck for an idea about how you can use all the goodies in the kit, email me, or, better yet: post your question on our new forums!

The Nitty Gritty Details

The Prize ($107 Value!)

Half-Gallon Vegetable Fermentation Master
Quart Vegetable Fermentation Master
Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz
Mandolin Slicer
Caldwell Starter Culture for Fresh Vegetables
Celtic Sea Salt

How to Enter

Anyone is welcome to enter who is over the age of 18 and resides in the United States, provided doing so does not violate any local laws of your place of residency. If you are currently using an adblocker, please disable it so that you can participate in this giveaway (besides, you’re actually missing out on content when viewing Nourished Kitchen with an active ad blocker). For those reading this post in a feed reader or by email, if you wish to enter, please click through to the actual post.

7 Ways to Enter

You MUST enter through the Cultures for Health website first. Your entries will not otherwise count unless you first sign up through Cultures for Health:: .

There are seven ways to enter and up to a maximum of ten entries per person. Please remember that for your entry to count, you must leave a separate comment for every entry you make.

DO THIS FIRST (REQUIRED): . Then come back to this post and comment letting me know the first vegetable you’d ferment with your new kit.
Blog this giveaway explaining why you want to win and including a link back to your favorite fermented Nourished Kitchen food recipe.
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen newsletter sent every other week (seriously, folks, you NEED to subscribe to this anyway. It’s awesome.) (1 extra entry)
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen feed by email. (2 extra entries)

Already Love Nourished Kitchen and Get it Anyway You Can?

Don’t worry, just leave a comment for every applicable entry to be counted. Part of subscribing to, fanning and following Nourished Kitchen is participating in goodies and giveaways like this one, but don’t forget to leave a comment for every applicable entry.

Four Reasons You Should Enter Right Now

Because it’s completely free to enter, all it takes is about five minutes of your time.
Because this kit, and everything it contains, will set you up completely. It contains everything you need, save the actual vegetables to get started pickling and preserving your way through summer’s bounty.
Because when you enter this contest, clicking on the link above to Cultures for Health, you support Nourished Kitchen which enables me to keep bringing you great content, and loads more real food recipes (that you can use with your new kit!)
Because everyone who enters gets a coupon code when the winner is announced – meaning you’ll all save a little something for participating.

The Announcement

The winner will be announced on this post and to all participants with valid email addresses by noon on Monday, August 23rd Mountain Time. The winner will be drawn by Random.org and contacted after noon on Monday, August 23rd Mountain Time. The winner has twenty-four hours to respond before another is chosen.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 840 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

A Recipe: Fresh Fig & Yogurt Tart with Almond Crust

Jenny — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:20:07 PDT

A fresh fig tart, earthy and mildly sweet, is a hard thing to resist. And when fresh figs are paired with honeyed yogurt and almond meal, it’s even harder to resist, especially for four-year-old fingers. So when we made this fresh fig tart, filling an almond flour tart shell with honey-sweetened strained yogurt and slices of ripe Mission figs, the tart barely made it to the table before my son’s fingers crept into the frame and began picking at the tart hoping for just a nibble, just a little bite that would satisfy him as he waited, with as much patience as a person of four years’ life experience can muster, while I finished photographing the tart. You can see the demise of the fresh fig tart in this photostream on Flickr, start to finish (click here to skip to the recipe for fresh fig and yogurt tart in an almond crust).

Fresh fig tarts, are a special treat and so undeniably seasonal. Even if you could track down fresh figs come January, what would be the point? Eating a fresh fig out of season is a terribly anachronistic endeavor like baking a pumpkin pie in April or serving gingerbread in July. It just doesn’t work. There would be no joy. Foods have their seasons with reason as it creates this sense of anticipation and excitement all year long – like waiting for that first black cherry in June or that first bite of sun-ripened heirloom tomato in late July. By keeping foods to their seasons, we can experience that sense of pleasure and anticipation with every mouthful we consume.

The first time I ate a fig, outside of a Fig Newton which just doesn’t count, I’d been volunteering in Morocco with other idealistic college kids all hell-bent on seeing the world and lending a helping hand, though I was the only American and, for a time, the only woman. Our job was to whitewash and revive a community center in Chefchaouen – a beautiful mountain town nestled in the foothills of the Rif mountains. I’m drawn to mountain towns which may be why I ended up where I did in Crested Butte, or it could also be my desperate and unabashed love for my husband that seems to multiply day by day. Chaouen is small and its souq is easy to navigate unlike the monsters in Fes and Marrakech. A tourist could find her way in and out without too much trial. But it’s not the souq that shines in Chaouen; rather, it’s the architecture: all blue and white and stunningly picturesque. I was there during July and August when the summer was in full bloom and the trees that lined the medina and creek dripped with fresh ripe figs. Learning from my friends, I’d pluck a ripe purple fig from the tree and mash it into my mouth, scraping its flesh from the skin all feral-like and without the inhibition that usually tempers taking unhindered joy in the food we eat, and how we eat it. And that’s when I fell in love with fresh, ripe figs.

I love desserts (especially healthy, real food desserts), and this fresh fig tart is no exception. And I don’t believe in deprivation. We Americans have a disrupted relationship with food: either we’re punishing ourselves with denial of that which we love, apologizing for our indulgences or mucking down foods that aren’t even real like soy milk or fast food burgers. Instead, we ought to indulge and celebrate the pleasures in the way that nature intended: a fresh ripe fig, a bowl of full fat yogurt drizzled with orchard blossom honey, a handful of almonds or a juicy grass-fed steak. For heaven’s sake, don’t deny yourself, don’t punish yourself, just eat and eat real. It feels so good. It tastes so good. It nourishes your soul. (Read more about my food philosophy).

So, for me, a fresh fig tart is the perfect example of a real food indulgence: decidedly simple to make, brimming with nutrient-dense real foods and utterly satisfying. I find that nuts go very well with figs, and other fruit too, and in this recipe we’ve married ripe figs and thick, fresh yogurt in a crumbly crust of almond meal. So those of you who, by necessity or preference, steer away from gluten or grain can enjoy this fresh fig tart without any awkward substitutions. Figs are rich in trace minerals and a good source of dietary fiber. If you can find it, try using fresh ewe’s milk or goat’s milk yogurt in this recipe because both will add a depth of flavor to this tart that just can’t be provided by cow’s milk. As an added bonus, many people find both goat’s milk and ewe’s milk easier to digest than cow’s milk. If you can’t track down ewe’s milk or goat’s milk, use what you have as this fresh fig tart is good either way. I recommend using a homemade, raw milk yogurt (learn to make raw milk yogurt).(...)
Click here to read the rest of A Recipe: Fresh Fig & Yogurt Tart with Almond Crust (425 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 18 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

Tomato & Cucumber Salad

Jenny — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:05:19 PDT

Tomato and cucumber salad, sparkling with the bright flavors of parsley, fresh lemon juice and a subdued and earthy olive oil, finds its way to our supper table several times a week during the height of the tomato season from early August through mid-September. Our family loves the simple combination of some of summer’s best vegetables: cucumber and tomato. (Skip to the Tomato & Cucumber Salad Recipe).

We gorge ourselves on tomatoes in the summer time, all rich, sweet and slightly acidic. We love the brandywines with their burgundy-like color, the zapotec pleated tomatoes with their exotic shape and deep ridges, the Green Zebras with their lovely green and yellow striations, but most of all, we love the Roman striped tomatoes which bloom with flavor and are well-suited to salads, sauces and tomato paste. And those sungold tomatoes (a hybrid), that everyone seems to love? Well, we buy pounds and pounds of those too – always with the intention of preserving them in oil, though most end up in our bellies as we pop them into our hungry mouths as though they were candy. I’ll say it again, we love tomatoes – especially heirloom varietals still warm from the sun and served the day they were picked (a particularly challenging endeavor when you live in an area with a 60-day growing season).

Tomatoes, like most foods, are best served at the height of their season. Sure, they may be available year-round, but where’s the pleasure in a pallid and mealy tomato served during a January snowstorm? No, keep your tomatoes local and served in season, and if you care to eat tomatoes out of season make sure to preserve them well by sun drying, in oil or even in good, rich and robust sauce. And these tomato salads? We relish them when we can and long for them when the heat of summer has abated and the days grow long.

This tomato and cucumber salad, like other real foods, nourishes the body as well as it satisfies the palate. Tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene, a carotenoid with antioxidant properties. While evidence indicates that lycopene may be more concentrated and bioavailable when subjected to gentle cooking – which may make those rich tomato sauces particularly nutrient-dense, this salad of fresh tomatoes is still teeming with antioxidants, food enzymes and vitamins. Tomatoes are even a very good source of folate – a B vitamin that is critical for reproductive health and is particularly essential for women of childbearing years as low maternal intake of folate is concretely and unequivocally linked to neural tube defects in babies. Leafy greens and organ meats like liver are also remarkably rich sources of folate. As an added bonus, this salad is gently tossed in unrefined extra virgin olive oil – a source of vitamin E and monounsaturated fat.(...)
Click here to read the rest of Tomato & Cucumber Salad (274 words)

Giveaway: Surf & Turf Cooking Class

Jenny — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:52:19 PDT

This giveaway is closed. The winner is Jenn W who will be joining the Surf & Turf class. If you’re interested in registering please click here or contact me for a special coupon.

Last week, I described how I planned to take the new Surf & Turf cooking class hosted by Ann Marie of Cheeseslave (view my post here), and she was kind enough to offer Nourished Kitchen readers an opportunity to enter a giveaway and win a registration for her new cooking class. So if you’re interested in the class, but sitting on the fence unsure whether its right for you, entering this giveaway is an excellent opportunity – and it’s a way for me to give back to my readers: you guys. I’m really excited about this class, and looking forward to participating in it – particularly the sections covering palatable preparation of nutrient-dense foods like organ meats or lightly cooked seafoods.

Surf & Turf covers some amazing topics.

Lesson #1: Protein & Fat: Why You Need It
Lesson #2: Shopping & Stocking Up
Lesson #3: Grilling: Setting Up an Outdoor Grill
Lesson #4: Seafood: Raw & Lightly Cooked
Lesson #5: Seafood: Broiled, Fried & Braised
Lesson #6: Bone Broth: Making Stock from Scratch
Lesson #7: Soups & Stews
Lesson #8: Roasting, Braising, Reductions Sauces & Gravies
Lesson #9: Pan Frying & Deep Frying
Lesson #10: Sandwiches & Salads: Meat-Based Salads & Grain-free Breads
Lesson #11: Organ Meats 1: Heart, Tongue & Bone Marrow
Lesson #12: Organ Meats 2: Liver Four Ways
Bonus Lesson: Appetizers, Side Dishes & Snacks

The Nitty Gritty Details

The Prize

1 Registration for the Surf & Turf Online Cooking Class ($120 Value)

How to Enter

Anyone is welcome to enter, provided doing so does not violate any local laws of your place of residency. International participants are welcome, but all participants must be over the age of 18.

7 Ways to Enter

There are five ways to enter and up to a maximum of ten entries per person. Please remember that for your entry to count, you must leave a separate comment for every entry you make.

DO THIS FIRST (REQUIRED): Click here, read about the class, and then come back to this post and comment – letting me what you most hope to learn from taking the class.
Blog about this giveaway describing why you want to win, and link your post to this giveaway. (1 extra entry)
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen newsletter sent every other week (seriously, folks, you NEED to subscribe to this anyway. It’s awesome.) (1 extra entry)
Subscribe to the Nourished Kitchen feed by email. (2 extra entries)

If you’re already a tried-and-true Nourished Kitchen fan, and wish to enter the contest just write that you already subscribe to the newsletter, facebook page or RSS feed by email, just leave a separate comment for every entry.

Why Enter

Because it’s free and it never hurts to try to expand your cooking horizons! Moreover, this class will not only help you to cook and eat well but also provide you valuable life-long information that can help you to make healthier choices for yourself and your family.

The Announcement

The winner will be announced on this post and to all participants with valid email addresses by noon on Thursday, August 12th Mountain Time. The winner will be drawn by Random.org and contacted by noon on Thursday, August 12th Mountain Standard Time. The winner has twenty-four hours to respond before another is chosen.

Notice of disclosure. Photo Credit.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment: 283 comments. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |