Berry Breakfast

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.  This breakfast just has 3 ingredients, all natural!

At the farmer’s market on July 4th, I purchased black raspberries and heavy cream.  Put them together and you have a wonderful breakfast!  It is also quite suitable for dessert.

It really couldn’t be more simple.  Take the organic, in season black raspberries, or any berry variety (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries), pick through them and discard any ones that have gone bad, and put them in a bowl.  Pour heavy cream over the top and serve.  No sugar needed.  I rounded out the breakfast with 2 pieces of humanely raised, pastured pig bacon.  No nitrates.  (I also do variations with 2 pastured eggs instead of bacon, but that is a topic for another day!)

What makes this breakfast so good?  Let’s break it down.

No Sugar. Refined or even minimally refined sugar is one of the worst things you can eat.  I won’t tell you to never eat it because I’d be a hypocrite.  But sugar is not good for you, no matter what form you take it.  It leads to obesity and various metabolic disorders including diabetes as well as tooth decay.  I do try to limit how much sugar I eat, and I try to make sure it is a more natural kind of sugar, like honey, maple syrup, molasses, evaporated cane juice, etc so at least I can get a little bit of minerals or something with it.  Eating the berries and bacon for breakfast gets you started without the sugar.  A much better choice than a cereal with sugar.  Yes, even so-called “healthy” cereals frequently list a kind of sugar as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient.

Antioxidants – I don’t eat berries because they are good for me.  I eat them because they are delicious; that they are so healthy is a bonus!  One of the things they have is antioxidants and lots of them.  Blueberries and black raspberries are particularly good in this area.  Antioxidants help prevent the signs of aging and can help prevent against cancer and heart disease.

Vitamins – Vitamin K, vitamin E and vitamin C are all found in black raspberries in good amounts.  More vitamins and minerals are in them as well, but these three are particularly plentiful.   Cream has a lot of vitamin A and Calcium, and since cream is fat and those particular vitamins and minerals require fat to in order be metabolized by the body, you know that your body is processing that full amount of vitamins and minerals.

Protein – It is good to start out your day with some protein.  The protein in the cream and bacon combined is almost the same as a cup of skim milk.  Protein is needed for your body to help rebuild itself and it also helps fill you up better than carbs alone do.

Fat – We’ve all been trained fat is bad for you.  That isn’t really true.  Fat from traditional sources is very good for you and is necessary.  Natural sources include dairy and animals (such as cream and bacon) as well as coconut and olive oil.  Vegetable oils made from corn, canola, cottonseed, and soy, to name a few, are not traditional and should not be consumed.  Why is dairy fat so good for you?  Cream from grass fed cows contains CLA and Butyric Acid which help prevent cancer.  Grass fed cow milk also has a better ratio of omego 3s.  Our bodies run on fat as it is a preferred fuel source.  Did you know that our brain is about two-thirds fat?  The nervous system depends on fat.  Besides, it just tastes good!  This is why people love bacon and cream.  Fat is also great because it really fills you up.  It sends a message to your brain to stop being hungry.  Have you ever eaten breakfast of skim milk and cereal only to find yourself starving an hour later?  It has happened to me.  But not when you eat bacon or cream!  You don’t need a lot.  Just 2 slices of bacon and less than 1/2 of a cup of cream was enough to keep me well satiated for hours.

Now, here is where you forget all of that stuff – when I make breakfast, I don’t think about all of these things.  I don’t think about the RDA for vitamin D or how much calcium I’m getting.  I don’t think about antioxidants or other cancer fighting micronutrients.  I just think about a few simple things – Is the food from a traditional source and prepared in a traditional way?  Berries have been foraged for hundreds of thousands of years, I’d bet.  Cream has been around for about 10,000 years.  A short period of time in the grand scheme of thing, but enough time for my ancestors to develop the mutation to be able to drink milk into adulthood (lactose tolerance).  Pigs were also domesticated around 10,000 years ago, but I bet wild boars and related animals were hunted for tens of thousands of years before that.  Since those are the only 3 ingredients in this breakfast, I think that is pretty good.  I also think about taste.  Do these things taste good?  You betcha!  And finally, I think about will this fill me up and keep me full until my next meal or snack?  Fat and protein help keep me full, where carbs, especially refined carbs do the opposite.  I also think about my meals for the past 24 hours or so.  I try and make sure I eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, protein including animal protein found in meat and dairy, and fat from traditional sources.   I don’t count calories, carbs or RDA amounts, and yet, by following this basic outline, I’ve lost weight and maintained myself at my ideal weight.  I’ve been sick less and had improved energy.   I’ve also eaten the most delicious food.

zucchini bread

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.

Today I picked up a CSA share for someone on vacation.  I was not prepared for the bounty of berries I was to receive!  2 pints of raspberries and 2 quarts of strawberries, plus other assorted vegetables and herbs.  I had been prepared to make a currant quick bread, and had prepped some wheat the night before (soaked it in yogurt and left it out 24 hours), but when I realized I could now make a raspberry currant pie, I had to switch gears and figure out something else to do with my soaked wheat.  I froze the raspberries and currants  so I could make a pie with them later this week.  The raspberries would not have lasted more than a day in the fridge, which is always the pity with raspberries.  So delicate that they must be used or frozen right away.

Since I’m getting a delivery of meat in 2 days, I figured I should use something from my freezer to help free up space.  Well, I did happen to have a little less than a cup of grated zucchini so I thought I’d make zucchini bread.  Besides, here in the northeast, the zucchini have arrived at the farmer’s markets, and soon we will be up to our ears in it!

Now, this isn’t a recipe that uses heaps of zucchinis.  It only uses about a cup of grated raw zucchini, or about 1/2 – 2/3 cups grated, blanched zucchini.   So this is a good recipe for when you have an odd zucchini.  Not enough for a meal, but you don’t want it to go to waste.  Of course, you could make multiple loaves and freeze them for later…

Soaking the flour overnight in yogurt is an essential step.  This neutralized the phytic acid present in the wheat.  Phytic acid is an anti nutrient found in nuts, seeds, legumes, and grains that can cheleate minerals from your body.  It can be neutralized by properly preparing these foods, such as soaking flour in yogurt.  The other reason the yogurt step is important for this zucchini bread is that it really helped to leaven the bread.  I would have used all soaked wheat in the recipe, but it would have thrown off the liquid to dry ingredient ratio.  Since I couldn’t soak all of the flour without making the batter too runny, I used sprouted wheat.  Sprouting will also destroy phytic acid.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, fresh out of the oven.  Recipe below.

• 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 cup Yogurt
• ~ 2/3 cup Shredded zucchini
• 2/3 cup Sucanat/Rapadura/Evaporated Cane Crystals
• 1/3 cup Melted coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• 2 Eggs
• 1 1/2 Sprouted flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup raisins

Combine 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour with the yogurt.  Mix well, cover with a towel, and set aside in a warm part of the room, away from drafts for 24 hours.

After the 24 hours have passed, in a separate bowl combine the zucchini, sugar, coconut oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Pour into the flour and yogurt mixture and add the sprouted flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, baking powder, pecans and raisins.  Mix and then let it sit for 3 minutes or so while you butter a bread pan.

Bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for about 35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes up dry.  Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Cooking Purple Potatoes

It seemed that all at once, I had a number of ingredients that had to be cooked.

At the farmer’s market last week, I picked up a bunch of stinging nettles. The food blogs have been a-flurry about stinging nettles, so I wanted to see what that was all about. (It turns out, I love them.) I also picked up some purple potatoes because they were just so beautiful. And somehow, I found myself with about 3 dozen eggs, and a fridge with little room for them all! Finally, I still had about a quart of soured milk to use. I had to come up with something.

I trolled the food blogs until I found this on Cook Local. It seemed just about perfect, though I would need to make a few modifications. My final recipe left out the onions (because I don’t really like onions), and it added spinach, soured milk, cream, and cottage cheese. It came out wonderfully! The nettles give it a wonderful wild, herby flavor, and the spinach brings familiarity, almost a Florentine type flavor, especially when combined with the farm fresh cottage cheese.

It is a flexible dish, hearty enough for a dinner, but also suitable for a breakfast or brunch. There is a lot of room to play with this one – for a more breakfast style casserole, add bacon or sausage. Use a different kind of cheese instead of cottage. Don’t have nettles? This would also work with kale, chard or all spinach.

This post is submitted to Real Food Wednesday – wild crafted greens, heirloom potatoes, dairy the way our grandparents drank it – these are real foods.

Layering Nettles and Spinach on Purple Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of nettles
• Half a bunch of spinach
• 6 small purple potatoes
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 6 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon of cream
• 1/3 cup soured milk (if you do not have raw, naturally soured milk, you can use yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, or turn fresh milk soured with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice)
• 3/4 cup cottage cheese
• Salt and Pepper

Boil the spinach and nettles until they are soft and turn a bright green. Try not to boil too long, just 3 minutes is about right. Chop them up finely and set aside. Slice the potatoes into thin slices. Melt the butter over medium heat and add the potatoes. Cook until they are nearly done. About 5-10 minutes. Preheat the over to 350 degrees. In a mixing boil, beat the eggs, then add the cream, milk, and cottage cheese. Arrange the cooked potatoes on the bottom of a baking dish. Top them with the chopped spinach and nettles. Then pour the egg mixture over the top. If you like, you can top with little dollops of cottage cheese. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the top, and then bake in the over at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until done.

Finished Gratin Right Out of the Oven

Ginger Pear Spice Muffins - perfect to bring to a friend.

This post is submitted to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.

Cooking for people brings me enjoyment. I like seeing them enjoy something I’ve made, and I feel good about making something nourishing for the people I care about. So when a friend had a small get together at her house, I thought about what I would bring. The food needed to taste good, but be healthy. In fact, I wanted my friends to be surprised at just how healthy it was. I wanted to bring something sweet, since I knew someone else was bringing something savory. I also wanted it to be vaguely breakfast or brunch appropriate. I turned to the food blogs, but did not see the inspiration I needed. So I turned to Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and saw just what I wanted (with a few modifications, of course!).

I ended up going with a variation of the Basic Muffins recipe found on page 482. Everyone loved them. They thought that the spices were just right, they were delighted with the level of sweetness, and they couldn’t believe the real pieces of pear inside. They taste delicious, and you would be hard pressed to find a healthier muffin. The recipe uses whole wheat flour, demonstrates soaking of the flour overnight to reduce the phytates, uses maple syrup (and a small amount at that) instead of a refined sugar, and includes fresh whole fruit. You must give these a try.

Ripe Pears

Ingredients:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of water
• 2 tablespoons whey*
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 ripe pears, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

The day before you bake these, you need to combine the whey* with water and then mix with the flour. Then cover with a towel and leave in a warm spot in the house.

After 12-24 hours (24 is best), chop the pear, grate the ginger, and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Combine all of the rest of the ingredients, including the chopped pear and grated ginger, with the soaked wheat. If you have some sort of a food processor or kitchen aid, you might want to use it. I don’t have one and just used old fashioned arm power. At first, it might be difficult to combine the ingredients as the gluten in the flour was working overnight. But cradle that bowl in your arm and stir vigorously, just like they did in the days before the food processors, and you’ll be able to combine it, as I did.

Fill a buttered muffin tin about 3/4 of the way. I used the “jumbo” muffin size tin and it made a full dozen muffins. Bake for about 40 minutes. or until a toothpick pierces the muffin and comes up dry. Then they are done – nice and gingery with real bites of pear. Incredible!

Ginger Pear Spice Muffins

*Whey can easily be made if you have raw milk or yogurt. Set the milk out for a few days until it has clearly separated. Yogurt does not need this step.  Then pour the separated milk or fresh yogurt into a clean towel or pillowcase. Hang it over a bowl for 12-24 hours – whenever it stops dripping.   The whey is the watery stuff in the bowl.  What is left in the towel is cream cheese.  Whey can keep several months in the fridge and can be added to smoothies, can be used in lieu of water for bread making, and can be used to start various lacto-fermented veggies. Whey has wonderful beneficial bacteria and a slightly sour or acidic taste.  The cream cheese will keep for a few weeks in the fridge and is excellent on crackers.  You can lightly salt it if you want to.

If you do not have raw milk or don’t want to make whey, you can substitute whey for a mild tasting vinegar or lemon juice. You can also use 2 cups of yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk instead of the water + whey combination. The goal is to soak the flour in an acidic solution for 12-24 hours.

A Nourished Start Sharing Carnival

This post is part of the Nourished Start Carnival at the Nourished Gourmet.  Breakfast can be a rough meal.  For me, my biggest hurdles are not wanting to eat something too heavy too early and being able to prepare something quickly that can be consumed in front of the computer while I check email or in front of the TV while I check the weather.  My time is limited, so I want to multitask in the morning instead of spending time at the stove or in the kitchen.

I used to be big on skim milk and breakfast cereal.  Every single morning.  But despite always going for the “natural” and organic cereals, most are still highly processed.  Many are extruded, which means heated at an extremely high temperature and then forced through something to make it into a fun shape (such as a flake, or twig).  This is not a natural process, nor is it something that was ever done traditionally.  Well, then there are the granolas.  I love a good granola.  But most are made with canola oil or other vegetable oils I prefer not to eat.  Vegetable oils have only been in our diet for 100 years (or less!), and I do not believe they are good for us.  I eat mainly animal fats, coconut oil, and olive oil.  And then there is the milk – I don’t drink skim milk anymore.  Only whole, pure, unadulterated milk, fresh from a cow.

So, what is for breakfast?  Here are a few standbys I enjoy these days:

Oatmeal – I soak my oatmeal overnight (room temp) in a bit of water and yogurt.  You can use another acidic liquid if you don’t have yogurt, such as kefir, or a mild vinegar.  Just a small amount diluted in some water, enough to get the oats moist.  This neutralizes the phytates in the oats.  Then I cook it in an equal amount of hot water.  It only takes a few minutes!  You can vary this endlessly with different toppings – my favorite is pinenuts, butter and ginger.  You can also do maple syrup, fresh fruits, berries, cream, nuts, or whatever you can come up with in any combination!

Eggs – I scramble mine.  The whole process probably takes less than 5 minutes.  I’ll frequently do 1 whole egg plus one yolk to give it even more nutrition than just an egg alone.  I’ll mix in some fresh cream or milk, and whatever herbs or spices I have on hand (fresh or dried).  Dill and Turmeric are favorites.  Sometimes I’ll add veggies.  Sometimes I’ll grate some cheese.  I use plenty of butter in the pan, and I’ve learned not to overcook them;  I’ll turn off the heat right before they are done and they finish cooking in the still-hot pan while I grab my plate, fork and glass.  This way they are always light and fluffy.

Toast – always sourdough.  Sourdough is the most delicious bread, in my opinion.  Plus, it has the benefit of being fermented, which has a lot of health benefits including reducing the amount of phytates in the wheat.  I like to slather my toast with butter.  YUM!

Smoothies – Make them with coconut milk for an extra treat!  Sometimes I toss an egg yolk in there as well.  When eating raw eggs, always take care to get eggs from a source you trust.  I get mine from small farms where the chickens are pastured instead of confined.  It not only keeps the eggs safe to eat raw (salmonella is a byproduct of dirty living conditions), but the eggs have more nutrition in them.  Just look at the gorgeous orange yolk from a chicken allowed to eat fresh plants and bugs in addition to grain!  I’ll also put in frozen berries, bananas, fruit, milk, kefir, whatever I have on hand.  Smoothies don’t always need to be sweetened, but when they do, honey or maple syrup is my favorite.

Milk and cereal – Yes, I still have milk and cereal.  A few differences though: when eating boxed cereals, I eat only non-extruded kinds.  I’ve heard Grape Nuts is not extruded, but I’ve yet to confirm it.  Many mueslis are good as well.  I also check the ingredient list.  I avoid anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), any kind of vegetable oil, soy, or any kind of ingredient that I can’t pronounce or don’t know what it is.  These are typically highly processed, isolated parts of food.  Highly processed, isolated parts of food do not equal actual food to me.   This mostly leaves granola and mueslis – cereals made from whole ingredients.  Through my local farm delivery club, I can also get granola made from oats that have been soaked to remove the phytates.  It is absolutely delicious!  I also make granola from scratch using unsoaked oats, olive oil, honey, and whatever else I have on hand that seems good.  I’ll probably post a recipe at some point.

I usually don’t have anything to drink.  I’ll usually have a glass of water first thing in the morning, but not necessarily with my meal.  If I do have a beverage with breakfast, it is typically a glass of fresh milk, fresh orange juice, raw apple cider or water.  I’m trying to stay away from too many bottled juices since they often contain things I’m not sure I want to eat.  I also prefer to eat more whole fruits than just the juice.  Sometimes I’ll find a brand with a good ingredients and I’ll go with that.

Other things I’m looking forward to trying:

• Just about everything in the Nourished Start Carnival at the Nourishing Gourmet!
• More yogurt based breakfasts (some yogurt starter just arrived, more on that soon…) like yogurt and fruit, yogurt and muesli, yogurt and granola, etc
• Homemade, soaked breakfast cereal
• Homemade, soaked granola
• Homemade, soaked muesli
• Breakfast breads and cakes, made from sprouted or soaked flour

I hope this helps give you some ideas!