My Day of Unrest

Sunday is not exactly my 'rest' day. With work, three kids, a hubby in full time school, classes to attend, and all the other stuff that makes up life, I have to make sure that I'm well prepared for the week ahead. In case you haven't noticed, nutrition is pretty important to me. I'm loathe to get myself in a situation where I don't have a decent meal backing us up. So, with Saturday being hang out with my posse day, Sunday has been relegated to making sure we have good eats in the fridge so 'quick' doesn't become synonymous with 'crap'.

So, let's go on a pictorial journey shall we? Fun, huh? Join me in my kitchen to see what was up for some of this week's menu. Sorry, I didn't get pictures of my two slow cookers bubbling away some bison roasts that I later sliced up and put in the fridge.

So, here's where you see my dirty little secret. I make my fermented veggies in my giant, ceramic sink. I clean it first! For this veggie mixture I used some easter egg radishes, carrots, purple carrots, green and purple cabbage, green onion, some leek, ginger, and garlic. Oh, some green and red onion, too. I covered it in sea salt, pounded the snot out of it and then packed in jars. I'll give more details in another post.

O.k., this was a problem. Remember those boxes of organic plums I had? Well, aside from the jars of prunes I've made, I needed to come up with some other options. So, here's my plum butter cooking down. See the dirty wooden spoon on the side? I used my tongue to clean up that mess. So bloody good. I cooked those wonderful plums with cinnamon and cardamom. Aye yi yi. Can't wait to eat that with some pastured pork one day.

I'm not big on baking. That's not to say I don't like it, I just don't think there's much place for those sweet "neolithic paleolithic" treats around my waistline. To make matters worse, I hear Kurt Harris' torturous condemnation every time I pick up a spatula. 

Still, with three kids, I do like to whip up a little ditty every now and then and then freeze some for those birthday party moments when the rest of the class has a sugar-loaded cupcake and my little urchin sits there with her bowl of fermented vegetables. Yes, that really did happen. So, my kids are thrilled with a muffin. These are made with coconut flour, ghee, some dried fruit I made, bananas to sweeten, and a mother load of eggs. They are moist and they are divine. That's my ghee in the background. I make it from raw, pastured butter and I mix it with organic, extra virgin coconut oil. We eat it with everything. Everything.

Canned plums. I added some allspice, cloves, and cinnamon. See mom? You can have some at Christmas. I source out the old jars, with glass lids. Newer jars, with the metal lids are lined with BPA. I'm not down with the BPA.

My post workout fuel source. Love me some sweet potats.

A peek in my 110 degree oven. Plums becoming prunes. I store the prunes in glass jars. I avoid buying any fruit in the winter, having prepared some ourselves. I also just don't think we were meant to eat much fruit in the winter (or at anytime really). A little dab will do ya'.

Pummeled and packed into jars. Now I just have to wait about a week and we'll have fermented vegorama.

O.k., so he's not a fermented vegetable or a dried plum, but come on! How could I not show you Pablo the Great Overseer. He perches himself up on that chair and makes sure I'm doing my kitchen duties to his satisfaction. He's a tough one, that little ginger cat. He keeps me on my game.

Skinless Gyoza and Yummy Leftovers for Lunch

The bright yellow colour on the zucching comes from the unrefined, organic red  palm oil they're drizzled with. 

So, I found a big bag of pastured pork at the bottom of my freezer (yes, I'm at the bottom, time to pick up my bulk meat orders). I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, but then I remembered my skinless gyoza idea. I used to love my gyozas, back in the day. Those little bundles of yumminess wrapped in white, tasteless dough. The dough contained the meat and was essential, or so I thought.

Turns out that you can make a pretty fine gyoza, or egg roll for that matter, without the crappy flour wrapping. You just flavour the meat with the right spices, give it a fry in some unrefined coconut oil, make a dipping sauce and you're done. As usual, I made more than enough so that we could make quick lunches for the next day.

I used this recipe (see video below) for my gyozas and his dipping sauce was really good, too. I put mine in some romaine lettuce with some cooked purple cabbage and mounds of cilantro. I wanted to use avocado, but somebody in our house thinks avocadoes are candy and keeps eating them faster than I can buy them (ahem, T, you know who you are).

I had to include the video, his little girl is just too darn cute.

I also cut some young zucchini into spears, drizzled them with organic, unrefined red palm oil (which is delicious if you haven't tried it), sprinkled on a bit of sea salt and thyme and roasted them in a 400 degree oven for a few minutes. I've had a bottle of palm oil for a while now, but didn't start using it until recently. We're really loving it. This particular type of palm oil is not refined in anyway, is rich in carotenoids and saturated fats and is, therefore, on par with coconut oil for it's ability to withstand heat. I wouldn't buy palm oil from a company that sells 'crude palm' which is a highly toxic, refined product. You can order sustainably produced palm oil directly from Wilderness Family Naturals if you're interested in giving it a try.

When we were done eating I got to making the kids' lunches. I just ripped up some of the romaine that was left, threw some olives, leftover cabbage and zucchini, fresh cilantro, and some gyoza patties into the mix. I drizzled it with some leftover sauce and gave them a lime to squeeze on before they ate it. It was really, really good. Oh, they got a nectarine, too. That was the last of our insanely delicious nectarines, straight from the organic orchard about an hour away. We're already looking forward to eating that amazing fruit again next summer.

Kids' lunches done in 5 minutes flat.