The Healthy Cooking Coach

Nicks Delicious Snack Sticks

Whether you’re at home or on the go, jerky makes an easy and nutritious snack. Pair it with fresh fruit for added nutrition and alkaline elements. Add a small handful of raw or lightly toasted nuts to make a more substantial snack. For a mini-meal, serve it with a vegetable soup or salad.

Jerky is highly portable, compact, shelf-stable, and rich in protein. Unfortunately, most jerky is made from factory farmed meat laced with growth-promoting hormone and antibiotic residues, preservatives, additives, such as hydrogented fats and oils, high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners, fillers, synthetic, carcinogenic colorings (most commercial snack sticks include red dye #3 in their ingredient lists).

Not Nick’s
As a cancer-survivor and conscious eater, Nick is particular about what goes into the products he makes, eats, and sells. Nick’s Sticks are made with 100% grass-fed beef or free-range turkey (you choose the flavor you want) and seasoned with Redmond Real Salt, an organic, pink-colored sea salt that contains more than 50 natural trace minerals, including iodine. (Most table salts and “sea salts” have processed at high heat, bleached, and stripped of all of their minerals.)

Nick’s Sticks come packed in convenient, ready-to-eat portions. Each 1.7 ounce package contains two sticks and provides 10 grams of protein. Two of his Turkey Snack Sticks provide 2.5 grams of fat and wo of Beef Sticks contain 7.5 grams of naturally occurring fat. Both flavors are made without added sugars, a rarity among commercial snack sticks and other jerky products. They’re also lower in sodium than most brands. The only nitrates they contain are those that naturally occur in sea salt and celery juice.

Nick’s Sticks are gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, and free of soy, corn, tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, and other commonly allergenic foods.

Food from a Trusted Source
Forget anonymous food from factory farms. I encourage you to support small farmers whenever you can. When you buy Nick’s Sticks you support an old-fashioned farm and get good, clean food in return. Nick Wallace, one of the founders of Wallace Farms, a 100% grass-fed cattle farm located in Keystone, Iowa, continues the tradition started by his great grandfather in 1894. He works the fields (wearing shorts) and uses practices that support the health of people, plants, animals, and the environment. When you buy Nick’s Snack Sticks, you’re supporting many great causes.

Fair Food
Nick’s company donates 5% of their net profits to The Fisher House Foundation, an organization that provides a home away from home for military families so they can be closed to loved ones during hospitalization for illness, injury, or disease.

Support Nick
Whether you want healthy snacks for work, when hiking, camping, backpacking, going to the movies, or hanging around the house, Nick’s Sticks are a great choice. They make great gifts, whether you’re stuffing stockings for the holidays or gift bags for birthdays, anniversaries, graduation, Halloween, or other holidays and celebrations, Nick’s Sticks make a great go-to item.

I liked the flavor, the quality ingredients, the convenience, the packaging, and knowing that the jerky came from a small family farm that supports healthy principles and practices.

To learn more about Nick’s Sticks and to purchase his grass-fed beef and free-range Turkey Snack Sticks, click here. You can also join Nick's Sticks Club and receive a 6-, 12-, or 24-pack a month supply to keep you stocked up and ready when hunger strikes.

Note: I don’t receive any financial compensation for my reviews. I only endorse products that I believe in and would buy myself.

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs can be made gluten-free with one of the delicious gluten-free pastas on the market. My students and I have enjoyed Tinkyada (brown rice pasta) and Andean Dream (quinoa & brown rice pasta. If you’re diabetic, have blood sugar issues, insulin resistance, cancer, an autoimmune disorder, or some other health challenge that has motivated you to limit or avoiding pasta and other flour products, you don’t have to miss out on spaghetti and meatballs. You can replace pasta with spaghetti squash. Anyone wanting to add more vegetable servings to meals can benefit from using spaghetti squash in place of pasta. 

Bill Staley and Hayley Mason show you how to make grain-free twists on many classic ethnic dishes, including spaghetti and meatballs in their recently released book, Make it Paleo. My friend and former cooking assistant, Anne, made and gifted me with three recipes from their book. The meatballs were my favorite. I liked the flavor and texture and found that the recipe reheated well in the toaster oven and made a great accompaniment to cooked leafy greens.

Here’s my picture of the dish and meal.
Photo credit: Rachel Albert Copyright 2012©

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Prep time: 15 minutes        Cook time: 35 to 45 minutes         Serves: 4

I really enjoyed this dish. I like that their recipes list prep time, cook time, and yield, just as my books do! The only thing missing from the recipe is how to bake spaghetti squash in the oven. The authors recommend microwaving it; however, microwaving destroys more vitamin C and antioxidants that baking or steaming and creates unique and toxic compounds so I suggest avoid it altogether.

Meatball Ingredients:
    1 lb lean ground turkey, or choice of ground meat
    3/4 cup finely chopped onion
    1 egg, whisked
    2 tablespoons coconut aminos (you can sub low sodium, wheat-free tamari soy sauce)
    1 teaspoon each of garlic powder, salt, and pepper

Meatball Process:

1. Preheat oven to bake at 350.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine all ingredients.
3. Form ground meat mixture into 1-inch balls, and place on two parchment lined baking sheets.
4. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.
5. Serve.

Marinara Ingredients:
    2 cans salt-free Muir Glen diced tomatoes
    3/4 cup chopped onion
    2 tablespoons minced garlic
    1 tablespoon olive oil (avocado oil also works here)
    2 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
    1 teaspoon (dried) oregano
    Salt and pepper to taste

Marinara Process:

1. In a sauce pan, saute onion and garlic in olive oil on medium heat.
2. Once onion and garlic have reduced and infused the olive oil with flavor, add two cans of diced tomatoes.
3. Add salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley to sauce and stir, blending all ingredients.
4. Bring sauce to a boil, turn down to simmer, and let simmer for 20 minutes covered. If sauce starts to boil when covered, then remove lid.
5. Toss (cooked) spaghetti squash* with sauce, top with meat balls, and serve.

    * The authors recommend that you
Cut spaghetti squash in half, remove seeds, microwave each half for 10 minutes, and scoop out squash with a fork into a bowl.**
 
** Note: I recommend that you avoid microwaving anything and that you bake spaghetti squash. You’ll preserve more of the nutrients and avoid hazardous compounds that microwaving creates. As an example, microwaved broccoli loses 97% of crucial antioxidants compared to only 11% or less lost by steaming. For an easy tutorial on how to bake spaghetti squash, click here (allow 40 to 60 minutes to bake it; you can do that in advance of the meal).

The other recipes I tried
I’ve got more recipes flagged in their book that I want to make, including Grilled Olives, Oysters Rockefeller, Sunflower Sprout Salad, Artichoke & Avocado Salad, and Barbecue Sauce. I also want to make their Lamb Meatballs.

I made their Garlic & Herb Mashed Cauliflower recipe. It required a little more time and ingredients than the mashed cauliflower recipe in Paleo Comfort Foods. Still, I enjoyed trying a new twist on the popular low-carb take off on mashed potatoes.

Anne and I both found the Carrot Souffle both too salty and too oily. I’d like to try the recipe with only a tablespoon or two of oil or with 1/2 cup of coconut milk (and no oil) and with one quarter to one half the amount of salt. I love carrots and think it’s a great idea for a recipe.

The Banana bread had a lot going for it in terms of ingredients---coconut flour, omega 3 eggs, coconut oil, and a super low sugar content with 4 dates and only 1/2 tablespoon of maple syrup. Tastewise though, I wasn’t impressed. If I were to make this recipe again, I would change several things. I would try adding a whole cupful rather than just half a cup of banana. This would also add more moisture. I think the recipe needs more sweetness. I would try adding a dropper full of plain or vanilla stevia liquid and one or two tablespoons of maple syrup or honey. I would also use only 3 eggs. With 6 eggs, Anne and I both found the eggy flavor too strong, a problem that afflicts some recipes that use coconut flour as the only flour in the recipe.

To try
A woman who owned a cooking school I used to teach in said that if you find three recipes that you really like in a book, you've gotten your money's worth. I think you'll find more than that here. I still want to try more of the salads and sides. I think you'll find more than three favorites here. If you’re not on a diet that restricts sweeteners, including honey and maple syrup, and you want to wow family and friends, particularly those who are used to conventional desserts, try their Peppermint Patties, Pistachio Bark (I had something like this a couple of years ago at a friend’s Christmas party), birthday cakes, and almond flour cookies (I’ve made some like this and they were a huge hit), frozen desserts (I’m a fan of coconut milk ice cream alternatives; I don't think you can go wrong here).

I think Make it Paleo is a great book for anyone who wants to explore paleo, primal, gluten free, dairy free, grain free, produce-rich, anti-inflammatory recipes that use high quality ingredients.  Of all of the paleo and primal cookbooks I’ve perused and cooked from, this one has the MOST beautiful photographs. You could leave it on a coffee to wow your guests. Let me know what you think of the book and what you make and like from it.

To order your copy of Make it Paleo, click the title on the left or the icon below.

Why Dry: The Benefits of Using A Food Dehydrator

If your garden is bursting with fresh produce, your friends and neighbors give you fresh produce, you visit farms with you-pick-it programs, or you find sales on your favorite fruits and vegetables, you may be wondering what do with all of it. How do you store it? If you want to save space, save energy, save money, and enjoy great tasting goodies all year round, drying is the way. It's not just for vegetables either. You can also make your own beef or bison jerky if you have a dehydrator.

What follows are the benefits of drying food and some tips to help you get started. For more information about drying meat and poultry and for great jerky recipes, consult my book, The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet & Cookbook.

Save Space
Most foods dry from one-third to one-sixteenth of their original size. Once dried, 76 tomatoes will fit into a  single quart jar! If these same tomatoes were canned, they'd fill 16 (one-quart) jars. Dried foods also weigh 85% less then canned goods. For example, you can store 25 pounds of onions in a one-gallon jar once they've been dried into rings, flakes, or powder.

Save Energy
The one or two pennies per hour it takes to dry foods is far less than the energy it takes to maintain fresh foods in the refrigerator or freezer. The drying process usually takes 4 to 12 hours but most people keep fruits, vegetables and prepared foods in cold storage far longer then this. Enormous amounts of energy go to waste in food storage that could be saved or put to better use.

Reduce your environmental impact
Drying helps reduce your reliance on packaged, processed and so-called “convenience” foods.  This translated into fewer cans, boxes, and bags in your home and, ultimately, in landfills. By some estimates, the average American throws out his or her own weight in packaging every month. Even environmentally aware shoppers often find it difficult to avoid buying heavily packaged foods. Why not make your own instant foods at home? With dried fruits and vegetables you can make your own spice blends, instant soups, sauce and stuffing mixes, soup “helpers” and extenders, desserts, powdered sweeteners, fruit leathers and meat-based jerky and dried veggie-chips

Save money
If you want to save money on nutritious dried foods, make them yourself. Sun-dried tomatoes often cost upwards of $12 a pound.  Dried chives cost $30 or more a pound and shiitake mushrooms cost between $20 and $40 a pound, depending on the grade. Dried apples cost at least $10 a pound while dried apricots often cost $12 per pound. Commercially prepared dried herbs, spices, and seasonings can also be costly.  In most cases, you’ll save up to 90% of the cost by drying foods at home. 

For convenience sake
Dehydrators don’t require any attention except for occasional checking to see if the goods are as dry as you like. And you don’t need any special storage containers. Dried foods can be stored in empty peanut butter, mustard, jam, or spice jars, or in recycled zip-lock bags. Or, you can place them in widemouth pint and quart jars and vaccum seal them using a Food Saver and a special attachment. You can dry your favorite foods during the day while you’re at home or away, or at night while you sleep!  Pretty easy, really.

Simply purchase or harvest fresh apples, peaches, pears, blueberries, or cherries, when they’re perfectly ripe, then dry them for use throughout the year.  Make the most of the summer’s sweet corn (if you buy or grow organic, non-GMO corn), tomatoes, bell peppers, chile peppers, peas, parsley, chives, leeks, edible flowers, etc. By stocking up now, you’ll always have enough on hand. 

Its the healthy way to go
By drying fruits, vegetables, meats and other foods at home, you can ensure that your meals are free of preservatives, refined sugar, and other unnecessary additives. Many allegedly healthy foods have been adulterated to such an extent that they no longer nourish us. Overall, drying foods benefits your health and the health of the environment.

Rehydrate it, you'll like it
Many dried foods can be eaten as is, though most are best presoaked and cooked. To rehydrate, place in a bowl with just enough cool water to cover and let soak for several hours or overnight.  Or, cover with boiling water, cover bowl with a plate and allow to soak for several minutes until soft and plump.

For dishes that require some simmering, such as soups and sauces, finely cut, dried vegetables should be added at the beginning of cooking time without being rehydrated.

When using dried produce in cooking, add more liquid than when using fresh produce because dried foods will absorb the juices around them. A good rule of thumb is to add an extra cup of liquid per cup of dried food.  For stewed fruit, add 2 cups of liquid per cup of dried fruit and simmer until tender.  For pies and pastry fillings, add one cup of water or apple juice per cup of dried fruit and cook your rehydrated foods normally.

Stretch the season
With such a marvelous and easy-to-use invention as the food dehydrator, you'll be able to enjoy produce all year long, whether from the garden, the farmer’s market, a you-pick-it place, or from good deals on seasonal produce at the grocery store or natural foods co-op. But, the only way to truly appreciate the far-reaching advantages of dehydrating is to dry it and see!

Drying Tips & Techniques
There are no absolutes when it comes to drying.  Many variables come into play like the kind of produce you dry, it’s size, thickness and freshness, the humidity in the air and the type of dehydrator you use.

• Use the freshest local and/or organic produce whenever possible.
• Buy enough produce. Most foods will shrink from one-third to one-sixteenth of their original size, so you may need more then you think. A good rule of thumb is 1 ½ pounds of produce per square foot of drying tray.
• Clean fruits and vegetables thoroughly before dehydrating.
• Peel vegetables and fruits if waxed or if the skins are thick or you find them irritating (e.g. sweet potatoes, yams, apples, etc).
• Remove any soft or spoiled spots before slicing and dehydrating.
• Slice, dice, chop or shred the produce in a consistent size to ensure that the pieces dry in the same amount of time. Consult your dehydrator's instruction manual for the suggested thickness of different types of produce.  Generally 1/4-inch to3/8-inch works best.
• Steam or blanch vegetables with long cooking times or that tend to be eaten cooked (e.g., green beans, winter squash, and sweet potatoes). For peas and corn, brief cooking can be helpful to reduce the enzyme action that causes flavor loss. Vegetables with short cooking times – such as zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, celery and onions – require no precooking.
• To prevent discoloration, dip sliced fruits (bananas, apples, pears, peaches, etc.) in apple or pineapple juice for a few minutes before dehydrating.
• Check the food you are drying several times a day to avoid over drying.
• Dried, sliced fruits should be soft and pliable when fully dried.
• Dried, sliced vegetables should be brittle.
• Label the containers with the contents and date.
• Store dried foods in a cool, dry, relatively dark place. Ideal temperatures are between 60 degrees F to below freezing.
• If moisture beads appear on the sides of the storage container, the produce is insufficiently dried. Return it to the dehydrator immediately. Oily or very moist foods such as olives are particularly susceptible to rancidity if not dried properly.
• Dried herbs do not require rehydration.
• Buy a dehydrator with adjustable temperature settings. The Excalibur is my favorite; however, I used American Harvest machines for almost 15 years before upgrading to the higher end machine.

 

 

Pick Your Paleo Kit

When I think of a kit, I think of a collection of parts that must be assembled to be complete or to create an item: a model airplane, a new kitchen table, or a book shelf. Steve’s Original PaleoKits are altogether different.

There’s no assembly required here; Steve and his kids have done it all for you. These kits are light weight, compact, and consumable. They consist of healthy meals and snacks you can use to build a healthy, lean, strong, and fit body. That’s what the members of Steve’s Club and his customers are doing.

Pick a kit, any kit!
Steve’s Original PaleoKit contains of a tasty medley of beef jerky, raw macadamias, almonds, pecans, and dried berries. The Grass-Fed PaleoKit is just like the original but made from 100% grassfed beef. The Coconut PaleoKit contains jerky, unsweetened, flaked coconut, and dried strawberries. Just Jerky packs and Paleo Stix can be eaten as a snack or as the protein portion of a meal on the go. Steve's Original MREs (Meals Ready To Eat) are great for people in the military who need freeze dried food that are healthy and that keep well.

Photo credit: Steve's Original, 2011

I tried a couple of PaleoKits. I used one to refuel after an evening hike and another when I needed a quick and easy meal on the go between appointments. If you’re looking for an alternative to meal replacement bars and powders, these are great. They’re made from simple and pure ingredients you can recognize and pronounce, things you probably have in your own kitchen.

If you follow a paleo, primal, or other grain-free way of eating and you’re missing granola, try the honey-sweetened PaleoKrunch Cereal and PaleoKrunch Bars. All of the products (kits and individual items) list the total number of calories, grams of protein, carbs, fat, and fiber, so you can choose the right one for your needs.

I enjoyed the Paleo Crunch Cereal over sliced fresh pears, topped with chilled coconut milk and over fresh berries with Greek yogurt. The Paleo Cruch Bar tasted great too.

Buy a kit, help a kid
Buying these kits supports your personal health but it doesn’t stop there. Buying Steve’s products helps build healthier lives for inner city kids; 15% of proceeds from Steve’s Original products go to the Steve's Club National Program to help bring CrossFit, nutrition, and personal development to youth across the country, one kid at a time.

How it began
Searching for a healthier way to eat and live, Steve found Crossfit training and the paleo diet. FYI: The paleo diet focuses on meat, seafood, vegetables, nuts, seeds and fruit, excluding grains, beans and legumes, and other agricultural foods as well as high-tech, modern processed foods.)

Steve liked the paleo diet’s focus on good, clean, real food and enjoyed the changes he saw when he applied its principles to his own life. He wanted to share them with others so he set up a non-profit organization called Steve’s Club to change the lives of local inner-city kids with fitness training and peer mentoring.  He started with kids from Camden, NJ—touted as the most dangerous crime-infested city in the country. Many of these kids were caught up in drugs and gangs before meeting him. Steve’s Club provided an alternative and continues to do so today.

Photo credit: Steve's Original, 2011

 “Four years ago, I started my first group of kids on a Crossfit exercise regimen and a paleo diet. Many needed to gain strength, some needed to lose weight but all needed real food they could pack for school. My wife Kristen and I got creative in the kitchen, and Paleokits were born!” explains Steve.

“Our kits found their way into gym, diaper, computer and carry-on bags of family and friends and the response was overwhelming. Our product was perfect for athletes striving to improve performance, those following Paleo, Zone™, low-carb and gluten-free diets, not to mention those who just love clean food and tasty beef jerky.”

Strengthening a nation, one kid at a time
Steve’s program has since gone national. CrossFit affiliates around the country are now sharing their space and love with underprivileged and inner city youth. Steve explains it best: “Kids around the country are discovering that a strong body equals a stronger mind and that every choice made today effects potential for tomorrow.

Photo credit: Steve's Original, 2011

"Steve's Club kids are doing well in school, running the business that supports their passion and recuiting new members to join the force. Some have gone onto college! They are achieving things that once seemed impossible. When given a fighting chance, nothing ever is.To find out more about Steve’s Club, please visit stevesclub.org.”

Steve’s team of cavekids helps him deliver his products to your doors. Your purchase of his products, you are giving these kids a clean way to make a living. You’re keeping them off the streets. You benefit from healthy, wholesome fuel for your activities in the process.

If you would like to sponsor a Steve's Club Athlete, you can donate money to Steve’s Club National Program, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing Crossfit, nutrition, and personal development to at-risk youth across the country, one kid at a time. For more information, click here.

Paleo Breakfast of Champions

I had a delicious paleo breakfast of champions this morning: leftover grassfed beef steak, green salad (also leftover) with Lemonette Dressing (from my Garden of Eating Cookbook), fresh pineapple with coconut milk, and  my favorite coffee alternative, Teeccino, with coconut milk, cinnamon, and vanilla stevia. I frequently eat meat, vegetables, and fruit for breakfast or brunch. This morning I had a special treat. Not only did I have a meaty bone to knaw on (the long thing in the front of the picture) and some exra juicy fat on the steak, I also had a rare delicacy.

Grassfed white beef
It wasn't just any grassfed beef steak I was eating. It’s white beef, something you’re unlikely to ever see in stores. It’s a genetic anomaly. I’ve been eating their beef for about six and a half years and last year was the first year they had (and I tasted) white beef. I had the ground white beef in tacos at their house. It looks like pork (see picture right)  even though it’s beef; it tastes very mild, more mild than typical 100% grassfed beef, which can have a slightly grassy (some call it gamey) taste. It still has the nutrients you’d expect in beef and a lighter taste. It’s the other white meat! It's so delicious!

Rare meat
It’s probably similar to white King Salmon that I had on several occasions when I lived in Seattle, Washington. It’s appearance always unpredictable and when they had it at Larry’s Market, where I worked the year following the closing of my restaurant, Rachel’s Natural Foods Café, I would often buy it for its rich buttery flavor. “No farmer or rancher that we’ve ever talked to has ever seen it [white beef] or heard of it,” says Brenna Aschbacher of Fishhugger Beef & Salmon.

Fishhugger beef
The white beef and most of the (regular red) grassfed beef I buy and eat comes from my friends Kenny & Brenna Aschbacher (known as the Fishhuggers in the Phoenix metro area and in Albuquerque, New Mexico). It’s raised on Kenny’s family’s farm in Sedan, NM, in the northeast corner of the state near the Kiowa National Grasslands. The cattle are raised on irrigated wheat, rye, and bermuda grasses. Whereas raw foodists grow wheat grass, juice and drink it, Kenny’s family graze and finish their cattle on the gourmet grass, a much better use of it if you ask me! Ruminants are far more efficient at digesting and converting the nutrients in grass into more important nutrients than humans.

Leaders in grassFAT beef
Kenny and Brenna are setting a standard for what they call grassFAT beef: their cattle are born and raised on the same farm their entire lives and spend about 3 years eating all grass, all the time. They are truly grassfed start to to finish. You may see meat in stores that’s grassfed initially, then finished on grain to make it fat fast! Technically, it’s no longer grassfed; once they’re fed grain the cows become grain-finished, a different animal altogether.

Grassfed is both a traditional old time practice, and a very new thing in our modern world. Lean grassfed beef can be easy to come by. As long as a cow has never been fed grain, it can qualify for the label “grassfed. We grabbed on to the term grassFAT to distinguish our meat from other [lean] grassfed meat,” explains Brenna. “Our animals are grassfed for their whole lives and they’re grass-fattened so they concentrate more of the nutrients that are found only in the fat."

Once cows reach sexual maturity (18 to 20 months old), when they’re done growing hair, skin, and bone, then they can lay down more fat. Some farmers butcher their cattle young so they can keep up with demand. Kenny & Brenna exercise more patience and allow their animals to live longer lives and eat more grass than most farmers in the grassfed movement. They want the animals to lay down more fat, particularly the kind of fat that 100% grass feeding produces.

Paleo food
Kenny and Brenna want to come as close to replicating what paleo hunters had access to and enjoyed the most. “We want the cattle to have a healthy life and really live to their full potential,” says Brenna. “It’s part of our commitment to the animals as well as to the quality of food.” You don’t want to trim off this fat before (or after) cooking. This if fat you want to eat! It’s good and rich and loaded with important nutrients that support health. Although many farmers and writer promote grassfed beef as being leaner than conventional grain-fed beef, their are many benefits to eating a higher fat diet. The fat content of cows, sheep, goats, and other ruminants depends largely on the breed of cattle, how the animals are raised, what they eat, and the age at which they are slaughtered.

Good fat is where it’s at!
"In the grassfed world most of the medicinal properties are found in the fat. All of our favorite vitamins (A, D, E, K) and essential fatty acids (long chain omega 3s) and cancer protective nutriens, such as CLA, are concentrated in the fat, moreso than the meat," explains Brenna. The meat provides a healthy protein, but we need the fat for other essentials that we can’t get or can’t get enough of from other foods. The hunter gatherers would go for the oldest, fattest animals. That produced the most energy for their efforts. Animal fat (yes, that means saturated fat!) is a traditional food our bodies are meant to run on.

The processor the Aschbachers use is located in Dalhart, Texas. It’s a small, Mennonite family-owned and operated USDA inspected facility about 30 miles from their farm that dry ages the beef for 14 days before cutting it and freezing it. Kenny and Brenna sell it to restaurants, individuals, and at farmers’ markets around the valley (Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Ahwatukee) from mid to late October to April, then they migrate to Albuquerque, NM, sell at markets there. During part of the summer, Kenny heads to Alaska to fish for wild salmon that's flash frozen on the boat. Some of that salmon gets sold to canneries, to the Japanese for the sushi trade, and some of it gets shipped to cold storage in Phoenix and Albuquerque to be sold along with the Aschbacher's beef.

If you’d like to buy and try some of their meat, visit the Fishhugger web site for the listing of farmers’ markets in the Phoenix metro area and in Albuquerque, NM, where they sell beef. You can also call them and arrange to pick up meat directly from them or have large orders delivered. If you are interested in saving money by purchasing in bulk, you can check out the Fishhugger Beef Bundles and 5th Dimension Food Shares. Half or whole beef orders are also accepted. Their beef stores well in a -10 degree F freezer for 1 year. Tell them Chef Rachel sent you!

I've been Seduced by Bacon

Seduced by Bacon: Recipes & Lore About American’s Favorite Indulgence by food writer Joanna Pruess with Bob Lape, her husband, a food critic, and confirmed lifelong bacon lover. “Almost every dish can be made better with bacon,” says the books jacket copy. “Our love affair with bacon is passionate and enduring,” say the book’s authors. Comedian and Bacon King Jim Gaffigan, would surely concur. Haven’t heard his skits? Check ‘em out on YouTube (after you’ve finished reading my blog post!).

Serenaded by the sound of bacon cooking? Well, even if you’re not, you might want to check out this book. If you like bacon, Seduced by Bacon offers scrumptious dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, or snack time.

If you’re going to be seduced by anything (foodwise, that is!), better it be bacon than, say, cream puffs, chocolate éclairs, lasagna, or macaroni and cheese. Contrary to what you’ve heard and read through the mass media, bacon does is a healthy food that deserves an honorable place on your plate… next to a more generous serving of fresh vegetables.

Bacon is actually better for you and more heart smart than white sugar, wheat, and corn. It was framed and blamed for diseases caused by other foods (e.g., refined vegetable oils, margarine, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and refined grains! How’d it get such a bad reputation? I clever smear campaign designed to sell us cereal and soy products paired with anti-saturated fat propaganda designed to sell us refined vegetable oils, margarine, and shortening. Don’t believe me? Check out Tom Naughton’s film: Fat Head.

Back to the benefits of bacon. It adds protein and satiety inducing, blood sugar stabilizing fat to meals. It’s meat and we’re designed by nature to eat meat. It’s great at making otherwise aversive vegetables, like Brussels Sprouts, more appealing to picky eaters of all ages. There's so much you can do with it!

Eat at least twice as much fresh vegetables or vegetables and fruit as bacon (bacon and eggs, bacon and fish, or bacon and meat) and your meal will still have a net alkaline balance, contributing to better health and ease of weight control. Even if you’re aiming to reduce your body fat, there’s room for bacon (in place of bread, pasta, rice, crackers, and other such items).

There’s so much to like about Seduced by Bacon: enticing photographs, a rundown of bacon terminology (baconology for short), bacon cooking methods beyond frying in a skillet, clearly crafted instructions, a generous smattering of bacon bits (neat stories, poems, anecdotes, history, and fun), suppliers of specialty bacon (who would have known there’s a Bacon of The Month Club? How much fun would that be? Mary & Steve are you reading this?).

Who here despised Brussels Sprouts as a child (besides me)? I now love ‘em but if you’ve not yet been converted (I was about 24 years ago), give the crucifers another chance. Married with the right flavors and enough fat or oil, you just might change your opinion of them! Go ahead, add some bacon. I enjoyed the Stir Fried Brussels Sprouts, Shitakes & Scallions on page 148. (Oyster mushrooms also work here as does low sodium, gluten-free tamari soy sauce or coconut aminos.)

I made the Warm Baby Spinach Salad with Oranges, Red Onions & Bacon (page 60). I would use scallions next time. Still, it was an enjoyable dish.

Although I rarely eat popcorn. Last time I made it was last summer when I watched The Notebook. But after reading the Bacon Bits on page 44 about Bacon Popped Pop Corn, Bob Lape convinced me to try this dish. I used multi colored organic popcorn (no GMOs for me if I can help it, which I can at home). Sprinkled with garlic powder and finely ground Celtic Sea Salt it made a great accompaniment to large green salad enriched with leftover chicken, olives, raisins, carrots, and homemade vinaigrette.

For lunch last Thursday (and Friday) I made a half batch of the Chinese Glazed Salmon (page 94). I started with wild Alaskan salmon fillets, lightly seared them in a skillet (I used Spectrum Shortening made from mechanically pressed organic palm oil), drizzled on an Asian barbecue sauce (I used homemade Hoisin Sauce, which was way easier than I thought it would be to make), sensuously draped the fillets with bacon and finished the fish under the broiler. Why make Hoisin Sauce? To avoid the high fructose corn syrup, artificial colorings and flavorings. By the way, you can omit the brown sugar in the barbecue sauce recipe (try roughly half as much honey plus 4 to 8 drops of liquid stevia).

I still want to make the Devilish Short Ribs (page 116). I love short ribs and the addition of carrots, onions, red bell peppers, ancho and jalapeno chiles, garlic, bay leaves, parsley, peppercorns, paprika, and cilantro sounds like my kind of food combination.

I picked up Seduced by Bacon from the Phoenix Public Library. I've enjoyed reaading it and cooking from it. Eventually I must return it. In the meantime I’m enjoying making my way through the recipes that rely on vegetables and meats and learning more about it.

Wondering what kind of bacon I used in the recipes? Pederson's Natural Farms. They have several different flavors at the Sunflower Markets in my area. They’re mighty delicious! I've tried four flavors and I liked all of them. Don’t be shy, give ‘em a try!

Pederson's Bacon & Carrie's Bacon Steak Bites

I heard about Pederson’s Natural Farms on the Primal Wisdom blog when Don Matesz wrote about trying their jalapeno bacon. I'd never had bacon flavored like that; it intrigued me. I perused their web site to find out more about the company and their products.

Pederson’s sells nine different pork sausages, nine bacon flavors, four different Bison sausages, six flavors of chicken sausage, ham, and three flavors of jerky (beef, pork, and turkey). I ordered samples of their Jalapeno Bacon, Uncured Apple Smoked Bacon, Uncured Hickory Smoked Pepper Bacon, and Breakfast Sausage Chub. Once they arrived I stashed some in the freezer, since they’re uncured and I didn’t plan to use them all within a week.

Products from Pederson's Natural Farms are made from the meat of humanely raised animals that are never given antibiotics or growth hormones. They’re gluten free and grain-free. (Some brands of sausage include fillers made from grains, particularly gluten containing grains. Pederson’s doesn’t do that.)
They’re made without any artificial ingredients. Rather than cure the bacon and sausage with nitrates or nitrates, they add a lactic acid starter culture, along with celery powder, to give the products a rosy red color and reduce oxidation. Best of all, they taste great.

In the two photos on the right you can see the pork breakfast sausage with baked sweet dumpling squash (with the halves baked cut side down, not up, and with no foil or water) and also with the same baked squash scooped out of the skin, mashed with ginger juice and coconut oil, heated in a toaster oven, then served with an ice cream scoop and topped with scallions. In one meal I have sauteed collard greens; in the other I have blanched broccoli, Really delicious, both ways!

I really liked the bacon. I prepared some of it using Mark Sisson’s Bakin Bacon recipe, a super-easy and clean way to cook bacon withought splattering, from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook. (Did you know you can bake bacon at a low temperature, store leftover cooked bacon in the fridge, and reheat it as needed? You can even freeze it, alrady cooked, for future meals.)

I cooked some of the in a skillet (the messy way, made less messy by using a skillet with 2-inch sides to reduce splattering). I used most of the Jalapeno Bacon to make Bacon Steak Bites from the Deliciously Organic blog (recipe below). (I used low-sodium gluten-free tamari soy sauce for the soy sauce in the recipe). That's my favorite flavor so far. My friends and I found the flavor very mild, not spicy hot. I still have one more package of bacon to try in another recipe this week, something I've never made. I'll let you know what I decide on.

Photo credit: Rachel Albert ©copyright 2011

The sausage has a mild sage flavor that I liked. Unlike many brands of sausage, it has a very low fat content, so it didn’t release much fat or lose much weight or size during cooking. I made small (2–ounce) patties with the ground pork and cooked it in batches by searing both sides of the patties in a skillet, adding about 1/4 inch of water to the skillet to create steam and speed up the cooking, and to remove some of the salt from the patties. (I like sausage less salty, particularly if I’m serving it as the only meat or protein in a meal… without eggs.)

If you’re looking for grain-free, gluten-free, preservative-free bacon and sausage, you want to try new flavors, and you’re looking to mail order, give their products a try and let me know what you think.

Pederson's Natural Farms

Bacon & Steak Bites

Makes about 30 appetizers; serves 3 as an entrée

I found this recipe on the Deliciously Organic web site by cookbook author Carrie Vitt. You could serve this as an appetizer, as an accompaniment to eggs, greens, and fruit for breakfast, or as an entrée over a crisp green salad or with sauteed leafy greens.

Ingredients
10 ounces beef tenderlion (grass-fed preferred)
1/2 cup soy sauce; I used San-J wheat-free, low-sodium tamari soy sauce
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar; I used unseasoned rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced; I used a garlic press
10 large slices of bacon (I used Pederson’s Natural Bacon)
Freshly ground black pepper

Place meat in a shallow baking dish. Whisk together soy sauce, red wine vinegar and garlic in a small measuring cup. Pour marinade over steak and marinate for 3 hours in the fridge or 1 hour at room temperature. (I marinated it all day, turning the meat part way through. I also prepared it through the next step but waited to bake it until my brunch guests were on their way to my house.)

Preheat oven to 400ºF and adjust rack to middle position. Cut steak into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Cut each slice of bacon into 3 pieces. Wrap 1 piece of bacon around 1 piece of steak. Secure with a toothpick and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat with remaining bacon and steak.

Season each piece with black pepper and bake for 18 minutes, turning each piece half way through baking time. Serve immediately. (I thought the leftovers tasted great reheated in an oven-proof dish in a toaster oven.)

Infallible Rare Roast Beef Rocks!

If you like roast beef but you don’t like the idea of firing up your oven when the temperatures are still in the high 90s and low 100s here in Phoenix, AZ, I’ve got the roast recipe for you! Even if it’s not scorching hot where you live (or when you come across this page), this recipe will make it easier for you to eat protein- and produce-rich meals.

My motto
“Cook once, eat twice,” or “cook once, eat thrice” simplifies my life. I absolutely love the convenience of intentional leftovers. By cooking with two or three days or meals in mind, I usually have healthy food on hand when hunger strikes. I don’t have to starch from scratch every day or every meal. By having a rotation of fresh food and leftovers, I can more easily assemble meals. Some meals and days I don’t have to cook at all. This make sit more convenient for me to eat well, meaning it meals based on meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and healthy fats, on a daily basis.

Roasting meat without creating a sauna
In hot weather you can certainly keep the house cooler by grilling meats outdoors or poaching, steaming, or sautéing fish and poultry indoors. But what if you want to cook a larger cut of meat and you hunger for that delicious flavor that comes from cooking a roast in the oven? You can use a toaster oven and the recipe below.

I made this recipe a handful of times when I lived in Ohio in a house that didn’t have an air conditioner. We had ceiling fans, window fans, and an attic fan. Still the house was transformed into a sauna during the summer. I’ve also prepared this recipe in sunny Arizona. In both places I’ve used my Cuisinart Convention Oven (it holds a 10-inch by 11-inch baking pan) for this and other recipes. I don’t own a microwave oven and haven’t used one for almost 25 years. The toaster oven is perfect for cooking and reheating food quickly and efficiently.

Convection Benefits
It takes less time to preheat a convection toaster oven than a conventional full-size oven. When you use the convection mode, the oven surrounds food with an evenly heated airflow. It saves energy. Compared to a microwave, this mini oven retains more of the natural flavors and nutrients and alleviates the risk of radiation leaks. A convection oven cook and reheats food as much as 30 percent faster than a regular oven. You can roast or bake a cut-up fryer, a turkey breast, or beef roast, or cook 4 to 6 sweet potatoes while you eat breakfast and shower and dress or do laundry and house cleaning. You can broil 4 fish steaks or turkey burgers while you toss a salad without turning on a full-size oven.

Infallible Rare or Medium-Rare Roast Beef

I originally heard about this recipe from Charles Hunt’s book, Diet Evolution. He got the recipe from Cooks.com I made a few changes to the original, adding dried herbs and spices, upgrading from vegetable oil (rich in polyunsaturated fats) to olive or avocado oil (rich in safer monounsaturated fats), and expanding on the instructions.

Note: If roast has visible fat on the surface, leave it on to insulate and moisten the roast. If you must trim the fat, wait until after cooking. I like eating the fat. It adds so much flavor. Meat fat is actually healthier for you than polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Don’t believe me? Click here to watch the Fat Head Movie. Click here to read more about the big fat lies we've been told about the alleged hazards of saturated fats and the supposed benefits of vegetable oils.

Ingredients:
1 roast beef with or without bones, any size (I used a 2.9 pound roast)
1 to 2 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil*
1 teaspoon finely ground unrefined sea salt (Redmond Real Salt or Celtic Sea Salt)*
2 to 3 tablespoons ground mustard powder or your favorite salt-free spice blend*
1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper or white pepper*

* Reduce the amount of oil, sea salt, mustard, and pepper for a smaller roast or to suit your tastes.

1. In the morning, preheat the oven to 375˚F. Rub the roast with oil. Mix the sea salt, dry mustard, and pepper on a piece of parchment paper or on a shallow platter or in a rimmed baking pan. With clean, dry hands, roll the roast in the seasonings to coat well, and then pat the spices on with your hands.
2. Put roast in the oven. Close the door and cook for 1 hour. Turn off heat. Leave the roast in the oven for at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours (this version says you can leave it in the oven all day, but I wonder about the safety of that!). Do not open the door while the roast is in the oven.
3. Thirty minutes before serving, turn the oven back on to 375˚F.
4. Carve the roast, serve what you like, and refrigerate the rest. Once the meat feels cold to the touch, freeze what you don’t plan to use within 2 to 3 days. I use glass Pyrex and Corningware containers with fitted lids.

Here’s are two more variations on this recipe that use a higher temperature.  Some versions list the cooking time in minutes per pound. Note: If you don't like it rare, you can cook it medium-rare by increasing the time when you reheat the roast.
Infallible Rare Roast Beef (version #2)
Roast Beef Rare (another version of)

Have you tried this recipe?
What do you think? What kind of roast did you use? What size? What seasonings? How did you like the results?

Got Goat Meat?

I love trying new foods and flavors. A few months ago one of my cooking students and coaching clients told me she purchased goat meat from Circle Key Farm at the downtown Scottsdale, AZ, farmers’ market. I wanted to try it!

Goat history
Food historian believe that goats were among the earliest animal domesticated, along with sheep and dogs. Cave art depicting goats dates back 10,000 to 20,000 years. Goat meat currently provides most of the animal protein for people in North African and Middle Eastern nations. The meat is also prized by people in the Caribbean, in Southeast Asia, Mexico, and in developing tropical countries.

Goat meat is extremely lean and low in fat. A 3-ounce portion of roasted goat meat (analyzed by the USDA) contains 122 calories, 3 grams of fat, 23 grams of protein, 3.3 mg of iron, and 64 milligrams of cholesterol. Compared to conventional beef, goat meat contains 50 to 65% less fat.

Getting goat
A friend and I decided we would grill goat meat for 4th of July weekend. I agreed to get the meat and marinate it. He agreed to pick up the vegetables for the kabobs and the side dishes. I would bring Ice Dream with chocolate and caramel sauce for dessert.

I called the people who were raising and selling it, found out about their operation, and confirmed that they would be at the Scottsdale market throughout the summer (some farmers stop selling at the market from July to September).

Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert ©2010

The farmers
Jannie and Eddie Key have a small farm in Eloy—about an hour outside of Phoenix. The couple started with cattle then found out about goats and decided to switch because not many people were raising goats. After checking around they discovered that the halal markets in the valley were relying on goat meat from New Zeland, Australia, and Africa. They wanted to provide locally grown meat to the valley residents.

They both have regular jobs and raise the goats in the spare time they have. The’ve been raising goats for three years now. They have a herd of about 100 goats that they raise on pasture (no grain). They raise and breed the goats themselves. They own the bucks and the does. They don’t use antibiotics or growth hormones. The only shot the goats get is a tetanus shot when they ear tag them. The goats eat alfalfa raised without herbicides or pesticides.

They butcher the goats at 9 months of age; that keeps the meat from being tough. Every three months they slaughter four to six goats, depending upon the demand. They have the meat cut, packaged, and frozen, and then they sell it at the Scottsdale Old Town & Scottsdale Stadium Markets and Ahwatukee Farmers’ Markets.

The goat I got!
Jannie gave me some recipes for cooking goat meat that she found on line. I picked up three pounds of ground goat, a leg and arm roast (to cut into chunks for kabobs), and a six ounce goat steak.

The BBQ
For 4th of July I marinated the goat meat in a mixture of onion juice, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper, cinnamon, oregano, garlic, bay leaf, cumin, and paprika. We threaded meat on bamboo skewers (soaked in water to keep them from burning) with onions, sweet bell peppers, pineapple, and mushrooms.

I used a recipe for Persian Lamb Kebabs with Minted Pilaf, omitted the rice-based pilaf and I changed the vegetables that we threaded on the kebabs. Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert ©2010

We served the kabobs with my Quinoa Tabouli and a side of sautéed kale with onions, and ginger. For dessert we had Vanilla Ice Dream and Pumpkin Ice Dream with homemade Caramel Sauce and Karly’s Cocoa Sauce (recipes from my most recent book, The Ice Dream Cookbook).

Ground goat
The next week I made a take off on Lamb Kafta Kabobs. A kafta or kofta is a Middle Eastern and Indian meatball made from ground meat (usually lamb) and spices. After the meat is mixed with herbs and spices, cooks often form it into a long hot-dog shape and grill it on skewers although I’ve roasted and grilled it on a baking sheet in the oven. My friend, Steven, suggested I call the kaftas made from goat meat Gaftas! I served them with baked, mashed sweet potato seasoned with ginger juice and butter.

The following week I made herbed goat burgers. I added an egg to bind the meat, finely ground sea salt, black pepper, yellow mustard, chopped green onions, and pressed garlic. Since the meat was locally produced by a small farmer and 100% grassfed (dropping the risk of Ecoli infection to an almost undetectable level) I left it a little rare in the middle. Serve with baked or roasted, sweet potato or yams or oven fried sweet potatoes with a side salad or blanched vegetables with a dressing or dip.

Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert ©2010

Goat steak
The same week I seasoned the goat steak with tamari soy sauce and gluten-free fish sauce and seared it in a skillet in warm bacon fat, then served it with lime juice and blanched vegetables. The steak cooked quickly because it was only about a quarter to third of an inch thick. I cooked it medium-rare to keep it from drying out. I thought this cut had a milder flavor than the shoulder and leg cuts I used for the kebabobs.

Cooking tips for goat
Any time you’re working with grassfed meat or wild game you have to be careful to avoid overcooking. Leaner meat cooks faster because it has very little insulation (fat). It’s best to use a lower temperature for this meat and to add moisture in cooking.

When you’re cooking it in the oven or on the grill you’ll find goat meat more tender if you marinate it and if baste it during cooking. Stewing and braising also work. The recipe I used for 4th of July suggested marinating for 12 hours. I only marinated it for 7 or 8 hours; I think it would have been more tender with several more hours of soaking. I would also try using some wine or red wine vinegar in the marinade to soften the meat and I would baste with oil before and during cooking.

When cooking ground goat in a skillet, add some fat to keep it moist. Good fats include ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, non-hydrogenated palm shortening, lard, and bacon fat. Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert ©2010

If you’re grilling goat, preheat the grill on high, then turn it down to medium-low after you place it on the grill grates. Turn it often and baste it for best results.

How does it taste?
Some might call the flavor of goat meat gamey. If you’ve never tried it and you’re accustomed to eating only grain-fed meat, you might initially find the taste of this and other 100% grassfed meats strong. If, however, you’re used to grassfed meat or wild game, you’ll probably like it from the first bite. Whatever the case, your tastes can change and over time you may find the taste of grain-fed meat bland by comparison. I would buy it and cook it again.

Don’t be shy, give goat a try! If you live in the Phoenix Metro area, try Circle Key Goat meat and let me know what you think by posting a comment below.

Where can buy Circle Key Goat Meat?
Scottsdale Downtown's Old Town Farmers’ Market
Brown and 1st Street
Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Season: October 23 through end of May
623-848-1234

Scottsdale Stadium Market
7408 E. Osborn Road in downtown Scottsdale (Osborn & Drinkwater)
Saturday 8 a.m. to noon
Season: June through August
623-848-1234

Ahwatukee Farmers Market
4700 E. Warner
9 a.m. to 2 p.m., summer hours 8 a.m. to noon
Season: Ongoing
602-919-9094

Gafta Kabobs (Ground Goat Kafta Kebabs)

Prep: 15 minutes    Cooking: 6 to 12 minutes    Yield: Serves 4

This is a very old recipe from Morocco. (I changed the name, omitted the bread used for binding and scaled the recipe to suit a single pound of meat.)

Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert ©2010

Ingredients:
1 pound ground goat meat
1/2 cup finely minced green onion/scallion
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 medium to large egg
1 teaspoon garam masala spice blend
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon finely ground unrefined sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white or black pepper
1/16th teaspoon ground cloves
2 fresh green chiles (such as Anaheim) minced; I subbed 1/4 teaspoon ground chipotle, optional

1 to 2 tablespoons bacon fat, ghee, coconut oil, or unrefined or virgin-pressed avocado or olive oil

1.    Break the meat apart and spread it in the bottom of a medium size mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl combine the onion, cilantro, egg, garam masala, cumin, sea salt pepper, cloves, and optional green chile or chipotle. Whisk to combine then pour over meat.
2.    Mix with a large fork or clean bare hands pulling apart rather than squeezing and packing the meat to evenly distribute the seasonings. (Use disposable gloves if you like.) Do not over mix. Shape into 8 pieces, then press and form into cylinders (they should look like hot dogs but be about half as long).
3.    To sauté: Heat the fat or oil in a medium to large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the meat pieces and cook for about 3 to 4 minutes per side, turning 3 times, until the same color throughout (well-done) or just slightly pink in the center (medium-rare).
    To grill: Cook over a medium hot grill for approximately 3 to 4 minutes per side or to desired doneness, turning twice.
    To simmer: Bring 1/2 cup water to boil in a 12-inch skillet. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil if desired. Add the shaped meat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 10 to 12 minutes or until the same color throughout (well-done) or just slightly pink in the center (medium-rare).
4.    Serve warm and refrigerate leftovers. Freeze any leftovers you don’t plan to to use within 3 days.

Variation:

*     Shape the meat into 1-ounce or 1-inch meatballs. Cook in a skillet as directed above in broth or oil. Watch the cooking time. Meatballs cook fast. Figure about 8 to 10  minutes over medium-low heat.

Serve over or next to a crisp green salad or a sauteed or blanched vegetable medley. Roasted, baked, or grilled veggies would also go well with this. Alternatively, you could serve goat meatballs with red sauce over spaghetti squash, steamed spinach, or over brown rice pasta with a salad or other cooked leafy green or mixed veggies on the side.

Jerk Pork Ribs

 I’m always looking for new ways to vary the way I season meat. I found this recipe in a pamphlet created by the National Pork Board that I picked up at The West of Western Culinary Festival here in Phoenix, AZ, in March of 2009. The pamphlet went into a file that I pulled out last summer, and again recently, when I was looking for ideas for cooking ribs.

I found the recipe straightforward. It requiring no hands-on, other than rubbing on the spices before cooking, uncovering, basting once, returning it the oven, then taking it out and slicing. So many of my favorite recipes are like that. I can start them cooking and go on to another recipe (or recipes) or focus on non-cooking tasks while the food cooks.

 Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert, Copyright 2010©

Cook once, eat thrice
On this particular morning here’s what I did between 7 and 8:15 am before turning on the computer and getting to work (at home):

• Season 3# of ribs and start cooking
• Season 4# chicken thighs, start baking
• Toss with XVOO and roast a head of garlic
• Rinse, halve, oil, and roast 2 artichokes
• Start a pot of Creamy Carrot Soup
• Marinate 2# Salmon Bellies (to cook later)
• Wash, drain, season 1# kale
• Wash dishes
• Make 2 thermos bottles of tea

From there I went upstairs to work. I would puree the contents of the soup pot with coconut milk in 30 minutes. I would freeze half of the soup, most of the chicken thighs, and some of the Jerk Ribs once they were chilled to refrigerator temperature. I would have brunch once the ribs and kale were ready (paired with a leftover sweet potato). The rest of the food would go into the fridge for future meals.

My plan
I planned to cook the salmon for an early supper (and freeze most of it). I would serve Salmon Bellies with a cup of Creamy Carrot Soup, a tossed green salad, a roasted artichoke, and maybe a piece of fruit. Some of the the roasted garlic would go into the salad. The tea I would drink throughout the day. The next day I would have great leftovers. The day after I might only need to make one or two new dishes. The leftover pan juices from the roast would be great for dipping the artichoke pieces into later.

Photo credit: Chef Rachel Albert, Copyright 2010©

Spice it up
I keep a well stocked spice cabinet (at 50 or 60 different dried herbs and spices) and I’d just purchased three pounds of pork back ribs, so I had all the necessary ingredients on hand. I made a double batch of the spice blend so I’d have some to try on fish as well. I jotted down my departures from the recipe: replacing sugar with coconut palm sugar, refined salt with unrefined sea salt, and replacing onion and pepper with alternatives (to test this option for anyone with a food allergy panel that might have to avoid these foods temporarily or long term).

Easy assembly
True to the instructions, the recipe took only 10 minutes to prep. I preheated the oven while I mixed up the spices and rubbed them on the ribs. I made one and a half times the recipe. I popped it in the oven, and set a timer (if you’re not in the habit of doing this, start now, it can save you a lot of disappointment and wasted food).

Multitask in the kitchen and around the house
You can cook an a lot of foods at once making them ready for multiple meals. Strike while the oven's hot: If you're turning on the oven to bake or roast once dish, why not cook two or three others at the same time? Save energy and save time by cooking in quantity. You can also start foods cooking before you do your laundry, pay bills, clean the house, write letters, check and send emails, or do other work around the home. Be sure to set timers and gear the complexity or simplicity of the recipes to your schedule. Choose recipes that can be left unattended (with a loud enough timer that you’ll hear in another room) if you won’t be in the kitchen.

Photo credits: Chef Rachel Albert, Copyright 2010©

Roasted kale?
I wanted to try a recipe for roasted kale (some sites call it Crispy Kale or Kale Chips, but mine never got that crisp all over, still it tasted great). The kale recipe, like the rib recipe, was easy.  I rinsed and de-stemmed the kale, spun and patted it dry (a step some recipes failed to mention), tore it into roughly 3-inch pieces, tossed with a measured amount of oil (I used avocado oil), sea salt (pepper optional), then placed it on a sheet pan in the oven for about 30 minutes, stirring part way through. My greens took longer because they weren’t as dry as the recipe required, something I made note of when I made the recipe again later in the week. Kale shrinks a lot: 4 cups raw will reduces to 1 cup cooked, concentrating the volume and nutrients.

For kale chip recipes, click here. 

Cook wisely
After the ribs cooked for 1 1/2 hours and I uncovered them, I turned the heat up to 375˚F and placed the pan of kale in the oven and let it roast with the ribs. I put a leftover sweet potato (from the previous day) in the oven (in a small baking pan, not directly on the racks) to heat. Lunch was ready about 30 to 40 minutes later. Cooking kale that way (in the oven on a shallow baking tray) saved time (I didn’t have to cut it into bite size pieces or stir and sauté). It saved energy (the oven was already on and the greens cooked along with the roast and the sweet potato I was reheating). Best of all, I had leftovers ready for the next day.

Jerk Ribs
Prep: 10 minutes      Cooking: 1 1/2 to 2 hours        Yield: 10 servings

This recipe from The National Pork Board requires very little hands-on time. It can cook while you do other things in or out of the kitchen. Leftovers reheat well in a toaster oven and also freeze well, for future meals if wrapped in parchment paper, then aluminum foil, and slipped into a zip locking bag. Alternatively, you can wrap in parchment and place in a Pyrex glass container with a lid in the fridge, making it ready to reheat while avoiding plastic containers.

Image right © National Pork Board  
   
Ingredients

• 2     pounds pork back ribs
• 2     tablespoons dried minced onion*
• 4     teaspoons ground thyme
• 1     tablespoon sugar (I used Coconut Secret palm sugar)
• 1     tablespoon onion powder*
• 2     teaspoons salt (I used finely ground unrefined sea salt: Redmond RealSalt)
• 2     teaspoons ground allspice
• 2     teaspoons black pepper
• 1     teaspoon ground red pepper (or additional black pepper)
• 1/2  teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2  teaspoon ground cinnamon

Note: If allergic to onion, I suggest you replace minced onion minced fresh garlic and replace onion powder with dry mustard.
       
1. Place all ingredients except ribs in small jar with tight-fitting lid; cover and shake until well blended.     Rub dry mixture onto all surfaces of ribs. (You may have some leftover spice rub so don’t add it all at     once. Sprinkle it on a little at a time, and rub in with clean, dry hands.)
2. Select your cooking method.
    To Grill: Prepare grill with rectangular foil drip pan. Bank briquets on either side of drip pan for             indirect cooking. Place ribs on grid over drip pan. Grill, on covered grill, over low coals 1-1/2 hours or     until ribs are tender, turning occasionally.
    To bake in the oven: place seasoned ribs in an 18x9x2 or 14x9x2 baking pan. Cover pan tightly with     foil. Place in a 350˚F oven for 1 1/2 hours, then uncover, baste roast with pan juice, turn the heat up     to 375˚F and bake for another 30 minutes, until tender  and the meat easily pulls away from the bone     when cut (i.e., you can wiggle the bone from the meat).
 3. To serve, cut into 1- or 2-rib portions. Cover and refrigerate leftovers and reheat in a toaster oven at     300˚F or 350˚F for 15 to 20 minutes. Save the meat juices in a heat-proof custard cup. Heat in a             toaster oven and spoon over the roast or vegetables in a meal. This recipe also freezes well.