Lamb Madras

This is a favourite of our - you do have to be organised in advance to make it. Sometimes I makea double batch and freeze half.


500g lamb cut into cubes
3/4 t turmeric
1 T coriander seeds
1 t cumin seed
5 dried chillies
6 curry leaves
5 cloves garlic chopped
2.5cm ginger chopped
1/2 t fennel seeds
1/2 T tamarind puree
4 T ghee
2 large onions sliced
300ml coconut milk
4cm piece of cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods

• Rub the lamb with turmeric.
• Dry fry the coriander seeds until aromatic - remove
• Repeat with cumin seeds and then chillies
• Grind them all into a powder using a mortar and pestle
• Add curry leaves garlic and ginger and grind to a paste
• Dry fry the fennel seeds until they start to pop.
• Dissolve the tamarind in 1/4 cup hot water
• Fry the onions in fat until soft
• Add chilli paste and cook for 2 mins
• Add meat and toss well with paste
• add 1 cup coconut milk and 1/8 cup water
• Bring to the boil then lower heat and simmer for 10 mins
• When liquid has reduced add remaining coconut milk, cinnamon stick cardamom pods, and fennel seeds.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Cover and cook over low heat for 1 hour until meat is tender, stirring occasionally.
• When meat is tender add tamarind puree and check seasoning.
• Oil should have separated from the meat.

Serve with stir fry veges or 'cauliflower rice'

the Ultimate latke

I got the original recipe for these latke's from the "Pecan bread" website - Im too lazy to make it the way Jodi does so here is my revised version. These really are so very delicious and my potato loving son barely notices the difference between these latke's and the potato ones I used to make (I have to peel the zucchini's for his - any bits of green and he wont eat it). I also use more spring onion that the original recipe calls for as we love onion and you can never have too much in a latke!

I also like to add various herbs and garlic sometimes depending on my mood. Try making them plain first as they are really very good that way, and if your family likes them you could try basil, thyme, oregano the next time.

I hope you enjoy these simple but delicious creations

The Ultimate Latke

3 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 a large cauliflower
5-8 chopped spring onions (white and light green parts) or 1 small white onion
2 whole eggs
salt and pepper to taste
Lard or coconut oil

Shred the zucchini on the course grater

Place the Zucchini in a tea towel and twist. Wring out as much water as you can. (I line my tea towel with paper towel so that any little pieces of zucchini that get left on the paper can be put in the bin - rather than trying to pick every piece off the tea towel )

Chop up the cauliflower and then whiz it a food processor for a few seconds until it becomes like small grains of rice

Fry the chopped onions on low heat, in a bit of lard or coconut oil, until caramelized,

Combine the zuchinni, cauliflower, and onions together in a bowl and add the two eggs.

Mix with a fork to get everything evenly distributed.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

I like to use quite a lot of fat to cook these in so they are nice and crispy. So melt 2 Tablespoons of fat in a cast iron fry pan and when hot, add a heaping tsp. of the mixture

Flatten it out a little with the back of the spoon/fork.

Turn when browned to your liking.

These can be made ahead of time and reheated uncovered in a 250F degree oven.

GAPS Lasagne

We have family over for the Christmas season, and I have been busy in the kitchen making all kinds of non-GAPS treats, that I have been (sometimes) successfully resisting.

Tonight I made lasagne but I didnt want to miss out so I made the following GAPS version for hubby and I to share. It is a tweaked version on a recipe I found on the net. Unfortunately I didnt keep the link to give credit - but I have altered the recipe enough to make it my own.

Enjoy this dish it is absolutely delicious.

LASAGNE

2 - 3 Zuchini
1 T lard or coconut oil
1 Large onion
1 large beef steak - cut into thin strips
One large pinch of basil, oregano, thyme
1 large handful of pecan or walnuts
1/4 cauliflower diced
1-2 cups tomato puree
2 pinches salt
pepper to taste

Melt a little fat into a lasagne dish and grease bottom.
Slice the zuchini lengthwise and lay a few slices in the lasagne dish to cover bottom.


Fry the onion in the lard on low heat
Add the beef strips and stew in the fat for a few minutes
Add herbs and and tomato pure
Cover pot and simmer 10 mins
Add cauliflower and nuts simmer a few minutes

Pour a little tomato mix over the zucchini slices
add another layer of zucchini before pouring some more tomato mix over that too.

If you can tolerate cheese then add some grated cheese between each layer too.

top off with some chopped parsley and grated cheese. ( I dont tolerate very much dairy but I could have the cheese on top without any problems).

Bake for 30 -60 mins at 180 degrees celcius. (my oven is super fast and our lasagne was ready in 30 mins. I also dont like my zucchini overly soft. The original recipe called for 60 minutes so you can adapt as needed).

Turkey "Rissotto"

Gosh I have been so slack with adding the recipes that I promised. Ive been so busy with my new job that the blog has been severely neglected.

So here is our current favourite meal, "Turkey Hash". It is suprisingly delicious. We call it "rissotto" as it is a good substitute when you are feeling like rice. We recently had a boy staying over at our house and I served this up and just said it was rissotto. Said boy ate 3 bowls full, even though his mother swears he never eats vegetables!


I found this one on the grainfree foodies blog - here is the link: http://grainfreefoodie.blogspot.com/2009/06/turkey-hash.html

Turkey Hash

Ingredients
3-4 Tbsp. butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large stalk of celery, chopped
1 tsp. dried sage, rubbed
1 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
1 tsp. dried thyme, rubbed
1 head of cauliflower, cored and finely chopped (I use a food processor.)
1 -2 cups cooked chopped turkey meat
Turkey or chicken broth as needed to keep from sticking
Salt and pepper to taste

My Tweak: We also add capsicum, broccoli, bok choy, and lots of garlic

Method

In a large frying pan or wok, cook onion, carrots, and celery in the butter until they are starting to soften. Add dried herbs, rubbing to release flavor. Stir. Add cauliflower, turkey and some broth to keep from sticking. Continue cooking and stirring until cauliflower is cooked through and the veggies begin to caramelize. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

My Tweak: We use a rolled boneless turkey leg that we get from the butcher and slow roast it the night before.

Enjoy.

How to Render Fat

Here is my suggestions for rendering fat, although there are some variations on this and you could check the web for others.

I usually buy 2 kilos at a time of port back fat or beef suet. Some butchers sell “grated” suet, it is more expensive but it comes in little granule that you can add direct to your cooking. I prefer to do the rendering myself and save the money.

I like to put the fat in the oven in a large/deep baking tray and cover it with another baking tray to stop it spattering everywhere. I cook it at about 150 Celesius for about 40 – 60 mins. Basically just keep checking it and when there is a nice pool of fat at the bottom of the pan you can pour it off into some jars. Then stick it back in the oven to cook some more and you will usually end up with another pool of fat that you can pour off. This process can be continued several times but the fat at the end starts to become a little browner and I like my lard/tallow to be white.

The jars you use need to made of nice thick glass with wide necks. Any mayonnaise or pickles jars will do the trick. I tried using some glass jars that I had bought at a discount store and they broke when I poured the hot fat in. The sides where obviously too thin.

You also need to sterilize the jars before putting the fat in, and it is a good idea to put the fat into a warm jar anyway, so the way I sterilize them is to just lay them on their sides, (without lids) in the oven for a few minutes before I am ready to pour the fat. They get hot really quickly so when you pull them out use an oven mitt.

I just place them in the sink on a couple of paper towels and then pour the fat in. The paper towels catch any drips.

Leave them on the bench for several hours until cooled and then refrigerate the lard (from pork) and the tallow (from Beef) can be left in a cool place – although I do put mine in the fridge.

Now is the fun part the cleaning up. I usually get fat on everything. LOL. Dump out the big grizzly lump of fat that is left, into the bin. Then wipe out the fat tray using a paper towel. I then also use my enjo grease mitt to get the last of the grease off and then was with soapy water.

Pizza

This is an adaptation of Baden's "Sunflower Carrot Pizzazz"

I made this dish recently and it was soooo delicious I intend to add it to my regular menu. I didnt start out with the intention of making pizza. I just wanted to cut the cost of our meat bill and so I had been looking for some vegetarian options and stumbled on Baden's recipe. As I was making it it occurred to me that it needed a little something so I added cheese to the top and then when I served it up with dinner, we all agreed that it tasted a little like pizza even without the tomato paste base.


1 cup ground sunflower seeds (soaked and then dehydrated before grinding in coffee grinder)
2 very large carrots grated
1 very large beetroot grated
1 large onion finely diced
Basil and oregano
Salt to taste
egg (optional) I didn’t use one and it still held together fairly well
Coconut oil (optional)
Your choice of veges and cheese for the top

• Put all ingredients except veges and cheese into food processor and make into a paste
• Grease a glass lasagna dish and spread paste in the base
• Bake at 140 C for 20 mins
  

For the topping I didn’t bother with the tomato paste but you could if you like that. I just layered slices of broccoli and zucchini on the base along with some thyme and basil and then topped with a very sparse covering of grated cheese. Of course you can use any topping but broccoli is my all time favourite on pizza so it was a must for us. I also don’t like to have too many toppings, but add as many as you like

• Put the whole thing back in the oven and Bake until cheese is brown (dont forget to turn the oven up a little for the second bake)

This was even better the next day with salad

Aloo ki tikki

This is an a GAPS rendition of the Indian dish called Aloo ki tikki. Usually made with potato I have modified the recipe to be made with pumpkin and carrot as well as swapping the besan flour for sunflower seeds.

These little vegetarian patties are to die for. Such a treat for me and a great break from the monotony of meat.

300g carrot
200g pumpkin
1 T fat
2 green chillies finely chopped
1/2 large onion finely chopped
2 cm piece of ginger, grated
1 t turmeric
1 t cumin
1 t coriander
1/2 t garam masala
2 T sunflower seeds pre-soaked and dehydrated, then milled in coffee grinder.
1 T lemon juice
Salt
Fat for frying

Steam or boil carrot and pumpkin
Drain and mash
Saute Onion, chilli and ginger in 1 T fat for 2 mins
Add spices and saute until fragrant
Mix in with the mashed vegetables and add lemon juice and salt to taste.
Stir in the sunflower seed flour, adding more if a firmer patty is preferred
Make little patties and fry in 2mm of fat.

These didnt hold together very well, so I intend to add an egg next time to improve this. Despite this the rissoles where absolutely delicious and there were no left overs for lunch the next day, much to my disappointment.

Salmon Patties

Ive decided to give the Real Food Wednesdays a try on my blog. I love reading all the blog entries on this group so I thought I would join in. Lets hope this works!

I thought I would share what we had for dinner tonight. It is an old favourite that I cut out of a magazine years ago. Apparently it is a recipe that Candice Bergen contributed to a charity cookbook called: Star Palate, Celebrity Cookbook for a Cure

I love this recipe because it is soooo simple AND it is gaps friendly.

I left out the ricotta tonight as we are dairy free at the moment, but in the past I have favoured Goats Feta over ricotta in this recipe.

Enjoy

Salmon Burgers

675g Salmon fillets
5 large green onions (we use spring onions)
2 tsp fresh chopped dill
3 tsp lemon juice
1 ½ Tblsp ricotta
2 egg yolks (use the whites to make almond crescents - will post recipe next week)
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Fat for cooking

Pulse salmon in food processor until finely chopped but not puree
Combine with all other ingredience except fat
Form small patties with hands.
Heat fat in cast iron pan
Cook patties over medium/high heat until crisp and golden on each side.

Serve with salad greens, tomato, avacado and sauerkraut.


This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop!

Raw Nut Granola

Makes approx 10 cups

- 1 apple chopped
- 1 ½ cup date paste (I just use some dates soaked in a little boiling water and then whiz in the food processor until a paste is formed)
- ½ cup honey
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1 T vanilla extract (optional)
- 1 t cinnamon
- ½ t salt
- ½ cup sunflower seeds soaked 2 hours or more
- 2 cups almonds soaked 4 hours or more
- 3 cups pecans soaked 2 hours or more
- 1 cup pumpkin seed soaked 2 hours or more
- 1 cup dried cranberries or currants or sultanas

1. In a food processor whiz apple, date paste, honey, lemon juice, vanilla, cinnamon, salt and ½ of sunflower seeds to make paste
2. Transfer to a bowl
3. Add to the food processor, remaining sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, pumpkin seeds (don’t bother rinsing bowl). Coarsely chop in a few quick pulses
4. Add to bowl with dried fruit
5. Mix well
6. Spread onto baking paper and place in dehydrator at 115 F for 8 hours.
7. Flip the granola over and peel away the paper
8. Dehydrate another 12 hours until crunchy.
9. Break into pieces and once cooled store in the fridge in glass containers.

Note: T = Tablespoon, t = teaspoon

Balinese Spiced Duck

This is one of my all-time favourite recipes and I wanted to share it with you all as it is so simple and a delight to the taste buds. I got this one off the web - one of the recipe sites, not sure which one.

Ingredients

8 duck portions
50g dessicated coconut
3/4 cup coconut milk
Deep fried onions and salad leaves (I caramelize our onions and we serve the Duck with Steamed or Stir-fried veges).

For the spice paste

6 shallots (I use 12 spring onions)
2 cloves garlic sliced
2.5 cm fresh ginger root pealed and sliced
1 cm galangal peeled and sliced
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1-2 red chillies seeded and sliced
4 macadamias or 8 almonds
1 tsp coriander seeds dry fried

Method

• Whiz the ingredients for paste in a food processor until a paste forms.
• Rub over the duck pieces and marinate for 3-4 hours or over night (I often skip the marinating as I forget!)
• Preheat oven to 140 C.
• Shake off the paste and mix the coconut milk into it
• Place duck pieces into a glass baking dish and pour over the sauce
• Cover and cook for 1 hour (longer if you are using legs and wings - I use breasts with skin on and 1 hour is plenty)
• Dry fry the dessicated coconut until crisp and brown
• Remove cover from duck
• Turn the oven up to 190 C and cook 20-30 mins brown and crispy. I usually leave it longer than this
• Sprinkle desiccated coconut over meat
• Serve with caramelized onion and stirfry veges and drizzle with

I often add a tsp of salt and a tablespoon of honey to the sauce at the end to boost its flavour!

Zucchini "Noodles" with Pesto

Today I made some noodles with pesto sauce for my sons lunch.

I used the Spirooli, that I purchased from the raw store, to make some "spagetti" out of zucchini. Here is the YouTube demo that I got the idea from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh0r4RU5fQQ

Firstly I chose a nice straight zucchini, as bent ones dont work very well in the Spirooli. Apply very little pressure as you turn the handle or you will end up with very fat pasta, more like hokkein noodles than spagetti. I was aiming for angle hair pasta.

Once the noodles are made fry them up gently with some ghee. I like to add some onion to the pan first and fry that until translucent before adding the noodles.

When the noodles are barely coooked, I add the pesto to the pan and warm it through. I then place it on a plate and sprinkle with cashews. This is absolutely delicious with Salad.

Pesto Recipe (I often multiply this by 4 and freeze some)

1 bunch of basil
1/4 olive oil
large pinch salt
pine nuts or cashews

Process together in a food processor until formed into a paste.

I like the nuts to still be crunchy so I add them at the very end and give them a little whizz through the pesto.

Here is a link on how to make the spagetti with a grater, if you dont have a Spirooli http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDrfVbsLkZE&feature=related

Home Cured Bacon

As most of you know regular bacon contains all kinds of toxic nitrites that are really not needed for the flavour and wreak havoc on your body, (Im assuming they are added to the meat to preserve it for long periods of time), so for quite some time we have been eating naturally cured bacon.

When we started gaps we found out that bacon was off the food list as it also contains various kinds of sugars. So being a lover of bacon I decide to find out how I could cure my own.

As with all my "how to" searches I started with YouTube (my favourite resource). I watched several videos of people curing bacon and ham in different ways. I didnt want to have the hassle of smoking the meat, as that seemed like too much extra brain power, so I just went for the basic cure and then freeze method.

Once I had seen enough videos to feel confident to give it a go myself I decided on a simple salt rub method.

That came out a little too salty and my teenager complained it had no real bacon flavor. So then I cured it with salt and honey. That made a real difference to the flavor. Although the honey in the meat does make it caramelize and then burn more easily so we have to keep the temperature of the pan on medium.

So here is what I do to make bacon. It's very simple:

I purchase an organic pork belly rinse it and rub honey all over it. Massage it well (this is a very goopy process).

I then sprinkle a generous amount of salt all over every surface and pat it down. I place it in a zip lock bag and make sure all the air is squeezed out before sealing it.

Place the whole think in a baking tray in the fridge and place a chopping board on top of it before adding a weight to that, to help press out all the juices – I usually use 3 kilos of oranges as our fridge is always full of fruit.

Each day I turn it over and replace the weight again.

In 5-7 days it is ready.

To slice it you will need a very sharp knife or a friendly butcher that is willing to slice it for you. (I spend approx $150 every 2-3 weeks at my butcher so he is very helpful and slices it on the deli slicer for me, so all the slices are nice and even).

I layer the bacon between pieces of plastic wrap so I can just pull out a couple at a time. I tried using greese proof paper but it tends to tear as you pull out the slices. Plastic wrap, called "Gladwrap" in Australia, works much better.

For the love of Liver

I used to hate liver.

Just slicing it would cause me to gag. Eating it produced the same effect and I would have to spit it out.

The dogs enjoyed my attempts at various liver recipes. They would go nuts for it.

Then I found some wonderful resourses that explain how to prepare it properly, and now I cant get enough. (And the dogs dont get a look in).

So here is a breif explanation of the benefits of Liver, and some simple ways of preparing it.
_________________________________________________________________

This excerpt is from "The Liver Files" on the Weston A Price Foundation website: http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/liver.html

So what makes liver so wonderful? Quite simply, it contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food. In summary, liver provides:

• An excellent source of high-quality protein
  
• Nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
  
• All the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
  
• One of our best sources of folic acid
  
• A highly usable form of iron
  
• Trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium; liver is our best source of copper
  
• An unidentified anti-fatigue factor
  
• CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
  
• A good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA.
  

Here is my favourite way of preparing the Liver - again from the Liver Files:

Marinate slices of liver in the fridge overnight in water mixed with a little vinegar or plain lemon juice, plus lots of garlic and bay laurel leaf. After marinating, pat dry and fry in lard and/or butter until well done (really brown on the outside and slightly rose inside). The key is marinating to take away any unpleasant taste.

Once the liver (I use lamb liver) is marinated and patted dry I cook it in one of the two following ways.

1. dip the slices in egg and then dunk in almond meal mixed with a little salt (you can use flour if you are non-gaps). Then gently fry on each side . These little schnitzels are divine. They dont taste like liver at all. I use them as snacks when we are out.

2. saute some diced onion and bacon and when almost cooked add some diced liver and losts of garlic and saute until just cooked. Fry or poach an egg leaving yolk runny for maximum nutrient value, then serve with liver mixture. I like to have this with a little salt and home made tomato sauce. Again this is sooooo delicious. Really it is worth a try!

Be brave and reap the rewards.

How Im making my soup

I have discovered a delicious way of making soup. (Well after 4 weeks of eating it you would imagine that I would stumble upon some sort of discovery!!)

Basically I start with making a huge batch of bone broth from 10 litres of water, 2 full beef necks and 2 marrow bones cut length and cross ways.

I simmer that for about 24 hours and then pick off the meat and scoop out the marrow. I add the marrow back to the broth and reserve the meat. The dogs get the bones (which they leave scattered all over my lawn!!).

I then freeze the broth in batches.

I then get some more meat - lamb chump chops are my favourite, but I also use chicken thighs, lamb bones with a lot of meat still on, beef chops etc.

I saute an onion and some garlic and the meat and water to just cover the meat. Simmer for 3-4 hours until soft. Remove any bones and grizzle. The water will have simmered down quite a bit so I add a nice big dose of bone broth. Maybe a cup or three.

Then I add the veges of choice and simmer - ready for eating in about 30 mins.

I sometimes remove the veges and puree and add back to the soup to thicken. Depending on how much meat was on the second lot of bones I might also add meat from the stock making process. The double batch of meat seems to really enhance the flavour.

I didn't set out to boil two lots of meat, I just found that each batch needed more meat, and often times I was simply adding veges etc to yesterdays batch to make today's soup and I definitely needed more meat.

This soup works really well for me.

Banana Caramel sticky muffins

So Im posting a few recipes that I have found and tried over the last week, and one that I made up when I needed to use up some left over ingredients.

Ill post them in separate blog entries and that way they will be easier to find under the labels (for future reference).

The first recipe is from Grainfree Foodies- The original recipe is here:(http://grainfreefoodie.blogspot.com/2009/04/banana-caramel-sticky-buns.html)

These girls are kitchen geniuses. I use a lot of their recipes. They call these tasty morsels "buns" I have renamed them muffins as that is what they more closely resemble in my opinion.

I have also tweeked the recipe slightly. We dont eat coconut flour at present as I have heard it is high carb so I subsituted almond meal for the coconut flour.

These muffins are the most delectible GAPS foods I have ever tasted. Not quite like a sticky date pudding but close.

Banana Caramel Sticky Muffins

Ingredients for muffins

1 Large very ripe banana, mashed
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup melted butter or coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups almond meal
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Mix all ingredients with a wire whisk.
Pour into a well-greased muffin tin or use silicone liners (I used cupcake papers. They did stick a little bit so you could spray some coconut oil on the papers if you find this an issue)

Ingredients for topping

1 cup chopped crispy pecans (from Nourishing Traditions or WAPF)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup butter
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon almond meal
2 Tablespoons shredded coconut
Mix all ingredients for topping with a fork.
Crumble topping on buns.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until cooked through.