When your garden is bursting at the seams with tomatoes, this is an incredibly tasty way to eat them up. This is also a good way to use tomatoes that are starting to go bad on one side, but are just fine on the other side. Toss the bad bits in the compost and throw the rest in the soup.

Ingredients:
Couple tablespoons of olive oil
1 medium - large onion or 2 - 3 cloves garlic... or both
Lots and lots of tomatoes
1/2 - 1 cup bone broth
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup cream
fresh basil to taste


Directions: 
1. Pour some olive oil into the bottom of a soup pot set over medium heat. Add diced onions/garlic. While that is simmering, begin chopping and adding tomatoes. I essentially keep adding tomatoes until a. I've reached about three quarters of the way up the pot and don't want the soup to bubble out or b. I've run out of tomatoes. Stir and simmer while you continue to chop and add.

2. Once you've decided to stop adding tomatoes, add the bone broth and let the tomatoes simmer for about 10 - 15 minutes. This gives the tomatoes a chance to break down and become soupy. Add salt and pepper and if you want a little heat, add a little of your favorite spicy additive now.

3. Once the tomatoes have broken down to a consistency that looks soupy, add the cream and basil. Let cook just a few minutes longer and serve. 

This is a great way to use fresh tomatoes in the fall. So you'll note that there's an "or" in the ingredients depending on the time of year.

It's also a good way to use up leftover rice.

Ingredients:
1 pound of beef
1 medium onion or half a large onion (or more if you really like onions)
1-3 cloves of garlic, minced
5-15 fresh tomatoes, diced (depending on the size of the tomatoes and how tomatoey you want your rice to be)
or 1 6 oz. can of tomato paste and 1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 - 1 cup homemade bone broth
1 teaspoon salt
pepper
couple of dashes of chili powder and cumin
2-4 cups rice... whatever you have leftover

Directions:
1. Brown the beef. When beef is nearly done, add onion and garlic.
2. Add the tomatoes or cans of tomato paste/chopped tomatoes, bone broth, salt, pepper and chili and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
3. Add the rice, let simmer another 5 minutes.

When reheating, add about 1/4 - 1/2 cup more broth so that the rice doesn't scorch on the bottom of the pan. This also adds in more of the good, tummy healing stuff that's in the bone broth. 

Ingredients
2 cups rice
2 tablespoons of butter or olive oil
1 small or medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or a small piece of chopped up fresh ginger
2 - 3 tablespoons of Thei red curry paste
1 can coconut milk
1 cup bone broth
vegetables (broccoli, peppers, green beans, etc.)
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons Bragg's liquid aminos
chicken or shrimp (I use 2 chicken breasts or about 2 cups shrimp.)

Directions
1. Put rice into a sauce pan and add twice as much water. (2 cups rice, 4 cups water) Bring to a boil. Once it's boiling, turn the temperature down low (to about 3) and let simmer until the water is gone. While the rice is cooking, begin the curry.

2. In a stainless steel fry pan, heat oil on medium heat (around 5).

3. Chop up onion and add it to the oil. Let it cook, stirring every minute or so, until the onion is soft and translucent.

4. Add ginger, curry paste (or curry powder if we're out of paste), coconut milk, and broth.

5. Add vegetables (either fresh chopped or frozen) and let cook over medium heat.

Chicken Curry Directions...
6. In a separate pan, fry up chunks of chicken in a few tablespoons of oil. Stir the chicken occasionally. Cook until lightly browned.

7. If everyone wants chicken in their curry, then add it to the vegetable mixture.

8. Add fish sauce. I know it smells horrible, but it's going to make the curry taste good. And add the Braggs.

9. Serve.

Shrimp Curry Directions...
6. Allow the curry to simmer about 15 minutes.

7. Add the shrimp, fish sauce, and liquid aminos. Cook until the shrimp is pink. (Or, if it was precooked and already pink, then until it's thawed.) Don't overcook shrimp! It'll be too chewy then. But you also don't want any translucent blue bits on the shrimp. That means it's still raw.

8. Serve.

Ingredients
1/2 package of bacon
1 pound of ground beef (one brick of beef - preferably thawed in advance)
1 medium onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 large clove or 2 small cloves garlic - minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper (or just grind pepper over the dish 5 or 6 times)
1 can tomato sauce OR 1 can tomato paste plus 1 1/2 cups bone broth
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can pineapple chunks

Directions

1. Cut the bacon into little slices (cutting perpendicular to the length of the bacon strips). Fry these up in a cast iron pan for about 5 minutes on medium heat (around 5 on the dial).

2. Add the ground beef and let cook until fully browned, stirring occasionally so that the meat doesn't burn on the bottom. Begin cutting up the vegetables while the meat is browning.

3. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlict o the meat. Let cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

4.  Add the chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Stir.

5. Add tomato sauce (or tomato paste plus broth), diced tomatoes, and pineapple chunks.

6. Your chili is essentially done at this point. But if you have time to let is simmer (3 or 4 on the dial) for 30 - 45 minutes, that will allow the flavors to blend together.

This recipe is a modified version of the Spicy Pineapple Chili by Civilized Caveman Cooking. 

One of our new favorites is gumbo. None of us like okra on its own. But in gumbo, it's actually quite good. I really like Whole Foods frozen okra. It has a very fresh taste. 

And peppers are a must. I made this once and didn't have any peppers on hand. It just wasn't the same. 

INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons oil (I've used olive oil or butter.)
1 onion, diced
1 cup diced bell peppers
½ cup diced celery
4 tablespoons coconut flour
1 six ounce can tomato paste
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon cayenne
6 garlic cloves, minced or sliced
Salt and pepper
1 can diced ripe tomato or 1 cup fresh
6 ounces andouille sausage, in 1-inch-thick slices
6 cups broth (Bone broth is best. Any kind will do.)
2 cups chopped okra (Whole Foods carries excellent frozen okra.)
1 bag shrimp. I've used both large and small. Use what you have.

PREPARATION

1. In a soup pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and cook briskly, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 8 minutes.

2. Sprinkle in coconut flour and stir to combine. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes, stirring.

3. Add tomato paste, paprika, cayenne and garlic. Cook for 1 minute, stirring well, then add diced tomato and andouille sausage and cook for about 2 minutes.

4. Season mixture generously with salt and pepper. Stir in broth and reduce heat to medium. With a wooden spoon, scrape bottom of pot to dissolve any browned bits. Simmer for about 25 minutes, until gumbo base thickens somewhat. Taste and adjust salt. (You may prepare gumbo base up to this point several hours ahead; bring it back to a brisk simmer before continuing.)

5. Add okra and let cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add shrimp and cook for 2 minutes more.

6. Serve with rice.

Modified from a New York Times recipe. 

I've found recipes online for leg of lamb that included mint jelly. But I don't have any mint jelly and I'm not interested in buying any. So I made my own version of lamb with mint. It was a huge hit with the family. The onions were sweet and caramelized and the lamb was tender and flavorful.

Ingredients
2 onions
1 leg of lamb
1/4 - 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup honey
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup homemade broth
salt and pepper

Directions
Slice the onions into rings or strips and layer on the bottom of the crock pot. Set the leg of lamb on top of the onions. Pour broth and honey over the lamb. Chop or rip the mint leaves a little and lay across the top of the lamb. Sprinkle garlic, salt and pepper over the lamb. Cook on the lowest setting for 8 - 9 hours. 

This was pretty darn easy to make and the kids went back for seconds. I found the recipe on JustaPinch.com.

Ingredients
8 chicken thighs (I used 4 thighs and 4 legs.)
5 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 c liquid aminos (which I like better than soy sauce and it's better for you)
1 can (about 1 1/2 cups) coconut milk
1 c vinegar (I used white wine vinegar.)
8 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
4 bay leaves
1 tsp whole peppercorns

Directions
1. I used an enameled cast iron pan to cook this in, though the recipe called for a large skillet. Melt the coconut oil then add the chicken. Cook it in the oil until the outside looks mostly cooked.
2. While the chicken is cooking, mix the liquid aminos, coconut milk, garlic, ginger, peppecorns and bay leaves in another boil. Once the chicken has cooked for awhile (about 10 minutes or so) pour the sauce over it and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce to a simmer until the liquid evaporates. (I suppose if you're going to serve this with rice or another side dish that would be good with sauce, you might simmer until there's just enough liquid left for a nice sauce to go along with the chicken.)

I may try adding some veggies to this next time just so there's more than just meat and so that I can join in as well. Carrrots and cabbage might be interesting additions. 

I made salad for dinner tonight. It's the first time I've made a salad that the kids asked for more of. So I thought I'd post photos and a quick description of what I did to make the salad.

The Chicken
I should have made more chicken. I cooked up two chicken breasts for 3 kids. I heated a cast iron skillet and melted a huge hunk o' coconut oil in it. (Maybe 1/4 - 1/3 cup of coconut oil.) I cooked the chicken on high heat until both sides were well browned. When the chicken was about two thirds done it dawned on me that now would be a good time to add seasonings. So I started with salt and pepper. Then I decided to pull out the big guns and throw some Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute on there. That stuff could make cardboard yummy. Once the outsides were nicely browned, I put the chicken into the oven which had been preheated to 350. I have no idea how long it was in there. I basically decided to pull it out when I was done checking my email, so 20 - 30 minutes?

The Salad
I had bought one of those prepackaged salad mixes. But I knew that wouldn't be enough. So I used half a head of leaf lettuce, then topped that off with boxed lettuce mix, then sprinkled toppings on top of that. Toppings included pitted kalamata olives, chopped red onion, and sundried tomatoes. I had meant to add feta as well, but I forgot to toss it in. Ditto with some pomegranate seeds. Both would have gone well with the salad, but as I said, I got kudos from the kids even without those things in there. The only thing I might want to add that wasn't in here was some nuts - maybe pine nuts. Slice the chicken and put it on top. For myself I sliced up an egg instead.

The Dressing
This dressing is super easy to make and super yummy. The key is having quality ingredients. I put in a huge scoop of mustard (maybe 3 tablespoons worth?), the rest of the balsamic vinegar in the bottle (maybe another 3 - 4 tablespoons), and a whole lotta olive oil (maybe 1/4 -1/3 cup?). I whipped it up with a fork until it was emulsified. I drizzled some on top of mine, but Naomi had asked for hers on the side, so I put it on the side for all three kids. They ended up using it all up.

After trying out a little apple in my cabbage soup, I decided to see how apple would work in a carrot soup. I didn't follow a recipe, which means I didn't measure a single thing. But here's an approximation of what I did.

Ingredients
A heap o' carrots
An onion
A couple of apples
Homemade chicken broth (or whatever kind of broth you have on hand)
Salt
Pepper
Curry powder
1 can of coconut milk (without guar gum)
1 cup whipping cream (because the soup needed some more healthy fat)

Directions
1. I set a pot on the stove with about 2 cups of water in it. That gave the carrots something to start simmering in as I cut them up and tossed them in. I probably diced up 10 or so carrots. I pureed up the soup later so I didn't worry about the size of the chunks. Chop up the onion and add that as well.
2. Add 3 cups(ish) of broth. The water should cover the carrots and onions entirely. Cook for about 20 minutes before adding in the apples.
3. Once the carrots are soft, run the soup through a blender or use an immersion blender wand thingy. (That's the technical name for it.) Blend until every last carrot has been blenderized.
4. Add the coconut milk and whipping cream. Add salt, pepper and curry powder to taste. (I used probably 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of curry. My chicken broth doesn't have any salt in it. If you're adding broth with salt, then you might not need to add any.)
5. I added a couple of apple slices just to make the soup look pretty. The girls were eating pomegranates and I was tempted to add some seeds for color, but ended up leaving them out... mostly because the girls are very possessive of their pomegranates.

I found this recipe in Detox for Health by Nicola Graimes, which I picked up from our local library. The fact that it includes an apple intrigued me. So when I had a hankering for cabbage soup this past week, I pulled the recipe out and gave it a try. I loved it! The kids liked it, but said they wished it had chicken or sausage in it. (I'll have a meat option for the kids next time I make this.)

I had photocopied the recipe to try it out later. When I went to make the recipe I found that some of the directions were cut off when I made the copy. So I'll just kinda munge those parts. It still came out tasty in the end. :-)

Ingredients
1 small turnip (I left this out only because I didn't have a turnip in the house.)
2 carrots
3 T. olive oil (I used butter. You're not supposed to cook olive oil on the GAPS diet.)
1 large onion, sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced
1 white cabbage, about 1 1/2 pounds shredded (675g)
1.2 litres / 2 pints / 5 cups vegetable stock (I used homemade chicken broth.)
1 sharp eating apple, cored, peeled and chopped (I didn't bother peeling mine. Waste of time and nutrients in my opinion.)
2 bay leaves
5 ml / 1 tsp chopped fresh parsley (Also didn't use this. Didn't have it in the house.)
10 ml / 2 tsp pickled cucumber juice  or lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper
fresh herbs, to garnish

Directions
1. Cut the turnips and carrots into matchstick strips. (Or just chop them up into rounds like I did.) Heat the butter in a large pan and fry the turnips, carrots, onion and celery for 10 minutes.

2. Coarsely shred the cabbage and add to the pan. Pour in the chicken broth, add the chopped apple, bay leaves, and chopped parsley. Bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer for 40 minutes or until the veggies are tender.

3. Remove and discard the bay leaves. (Or leave them in for the person who "wins" them in their bowl of soup to throw them into the compost.) Stir in the pickle or lemon juice. Add pepper and fresh herbs. (I also added salt. My chicken broth didn't have any salt in it.)

4. Next time I'll add chopped sausage or chicken and the dish really needed more broth than it came with in this recipe. I'd say another 2 or 3 cups wouldn't hurt. 

I posted a coconut pancake recipe earlier that had been advertised as a crepe recipe... but it wasn't. At least it wasn't when I tried making it. So I've created my own crepe recipe and it's delicious!

For dinner tonight we're going to have salmon (with onions and a broth/butter sauce), apple slices with brie cheese, and parmesan spinach crepes. Here's the recipe for the crepes.

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
dash of salt
dash of savory herbs (I used some lemon peel I didn't even know I had till I went rummaging through the herb/spice drawer.)
more butter to fry the crepes in

Directions
1. Melt the butter in the oven. Microwaving destroys nutrients. I know. I know. The micro is faster. But I'm trying to be a good girl and good girls melt their butter in the oven (or on the stove, or in the toaster oven, or somewhere that's not the micro).
2. Mix all of the ingredients together (except the butter that you're going to use to grease the fry pan). I don't care how you do it. It doesn't matter if you do dries and liquids separately then mix them together. That's just a bunch of bosch that cookbooks use to fill up their pages as far as I can tell. Throw everything into a bowl. Whip it up.
3. Melt some butter in a fry pan. Once it's hot, pour enough batter into the pan till it's about 3 or 4 inches across. When I did anything larger than that, it didn't flip so well. I found the crepes flipped better when the butter was starting to get used up, but they taste better when there's lots of butter. So I throw a lot in at first, then figure by the end I have pretty crepes even if in the beginning I had tasty crepes. It evens out.
4. Pile the crepes up on a plate as you work. You can then freeze them, fridge them, or use them immediately.

For the crepe filling I thawed some frozen spinach, threw in about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese that I had grated a couple days ago but not used, and stuck the bowl in the oven (where the fish was cooking). The cheese melted a bit and when I pulled it out I just stirred it together and used it to fill the crepes. Because the crepes themselves were kind of small, I had to "pin" them together with toothpicks. 

My sister recently told me about Rocky Plains Meats, which is located in Erie/Dacono, but they also have an outlet in Loveland. I finally checked out the Loveland store today and picked up some cuts of meat. I picked out some pork cutlets, mostly because they were skinny and I thought they might thaw in time to be used for dinner tonight, but I had no idea how to cook them. So I buzzed about the internet in search of a recipe and wouldn't you know, every single pork cutlet recipe I could find included bread crumbs or flour, neither of which works on a grain free diet. I suppose I could have dredged them through almond or coconut flour, but instead I cooked them without coating them in anything. Here's what I did.

I used two fry pans, mostly because I didn't want the meat to get cold and I was frying up four slices of piggy. I heaped a whole lotta coconut oil into each fry pan. (If I had measured, it probably would have been about 1/4 cup coconut oil.) I used a medium heat and popped the slices in as soon as the coconut oil was melted and warmed up. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute across the top of the meat. Then I let it cook for 3 or 4 minutes before turning it over and seasoning the other side. I'm guessing the meat cooked for another 4 or 5 minutes with a couple more flips as I checked to make sure I'd cooked the meat all the way through.

I transferred the meat to a plate, poured all the remaining herbs and coconut oil on top, and served it just like that. It was very easy and the family gave it rave reviews. (I also cooked up two sausages only because my husband didn't think the pork would be enough for the 5 of us. It cooked up larger than it had looked in the package, though, and we ended up with one sausage as leftovers. I think my husband only ate the other sausage because he felt bad that he'd asked for them. I think if I had eaten more meat, the sausages would have been needed, but since I'm a vegetarian struggling through a meat filled diet, I went with a small piece.)

I served the pork cutlets with roasted veggies. This picture is of the beats and carrots. I also had roasted fennel. Plus we had artichokes with butter to dip the leaves in. It was quite a feast. And for dessert, yogurt with homemade apple sauce (which you can see cooking on the stove in the top photo). 

When we first decided to go on a gluten free / casein free diet last July in hopes of finally curing my son of his constantly runny nose and bumpy red arms, I checked out every recipe book I could find in the library that might be of help. I also bought several from Amazon. I also did a lot of research online. Somewhere in the midst of all of my study, I came across mention of cauliflower "rice." So unfortunately, I can't give any credit to where the idea originally came from, but since the first time I made it, it's become a family favorite.

Though I've found recipes online, I don't get nearly as fancy as most of them when I'm cooking this dish. When I make it, I include three ingredients: ghee, cauliflower, and salt.

Step One: Melt a huge wallop of ghee in a fry pan. Because we're doing the GAPS diet, healthy fats are strongly encouraged, so I have no qualms about using a lot. But even when I made this dish before we were on the GAPS diet, I went heavy on the butter... mostly because I just love butter.

Ghee is clarified butter and it's approved for stage two of the GAPS intro diet, so that's what I used. I'm not one for getting all fancy about measuring stuff. So throw in as much ghee or butter as you feel comfortable using. You could also use coconut oil for a coconutty flavor. According to Dr. Natasha, cooking vegetable oils past a certain temperature do more harm than good. So stick to animal fats, butter/ghee, or coconut oil.

Melt the ghee/butter/whatever on medium heat.

Step Two: Grate the cauliflower using a grater or food processor with a grating disk. The goal is just to get little pieces of cauliflower. Don't feel like every single piece needs to pass through the grater. When I'm grating, it's normal to have little bitty florets pop off before I get them near the grater. That's fine, as long as they're small.  Throw the bitty bits of cauliflower in with the melted oil. Stir it around to spread the oil evening. Now you can move on to other things for a bit, stirring occasionally to make sure the cauliflower gets a little browned here and there, but nothing darker than that. 

You can see in the above photo I was also making homemade yogurt (see the milk in the pan to the right with the thermometer) and on the far right I was making poached eggs to go with our cauliflower "rice."

Step Three: I'm guessing the cooking takes between 5 - 10 minutes. I don't really pay attention since I'm dealing with other stuff at the same time. If there's a wee bit of browned up bits, that's just about where I like the "rice" to be. 

You can see the poaching eggs on the right in this next photo. Note the milk has been moved off to cool and the kids lunch is heating up in the center now so I can pack it away for them to take to school. 

Step Four: Sprinkle salt on top and serve.  You can eat this on its own or add it to any dish that you might consider putting with rice. It won't soak up sauces like rice does, but it still works surprisingly well in terms of getting along with the same kinds of foods. One of my girls told me this morning that she likes when the poached eggs are gooey enough to mix in the runny yolk with the "rice."