Nourished Kitchen» coconut oil

A Tutorial: How to Make Coconut Milk

Jenny — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 04:08:15 +0000

Ever wondered how to make coconut milk? No, not the tinned stuff; rather, have you ever wondered how to make truly fresh coconut milk? While tins of coconut milk do just fine – a compromise food that balances the traditional with the modern, the flavor of a true homemade coconut milk is unsurpassed. Take the time and the effort to learn how to make coconut milk at home, and your work will be well-rewarded.

Coconut, traditionally eaten across the South Pacific and in parts of Asia, is a powerhouse of nutrients. Coconut is rich in trace minerals including manganese which is essential in metabolism, healing and collagen formation, copper which plays a role in immunity and bone health as well as selenium, a nutrient which is critical to thyroid function as well as developing healthy skin, nails and hair. Beyond these trace minerals, coconut is a potent source of lauric acid – a wholesome and nourishing saturated fat with strong antimicrobial properties which may help to bolster immunity and even show promise in the treatment of acne¹.

So, there you have it: coconut is a beauty food which makes learning to how to make coconut milk a worthwhile pursuit, no? Consider it a beautifying tonic, essential in your routine like an afternoon beauty rest or a tonifying French clay masque.

Better than Store-bought: Learn How to Make Coconut Milk

If you’ve read Nourished Kitchen for any length of time, you’ll know we don’t take much of a liking to any canned or processed food which makes coconut milk a bit of a quandary; after all, it’s a rich source of lauric acid – a deeply nourishing fat which is otherwise only available in human breast milk. It’s also a good source of minerals and for those who avoid fresh raw milk by necessity or preference, coconut milk makes an excellent alternative – substantially better than high-glycemic oat and rice milks, undoubtedly better than hormone-disrupting soy milk and better still than nut and seed milks which tend to be high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3 fatty acids. In many ways, those cans of coconut milk are a compromise food – and one of the only canned foods recommended by the Weston A Price Foundation, a nutritional advocacy group, though it is not recommended for GAPS patients. Add the challenge of cans lined with bisphenol-A, a known human endocrine disruptor² and probable carcinogen^3,4, and you couple the degradation of nutrients by high-heat canning methods with the adverse effects of endocrine-disrupting. Canned coconut milk is, at best, a compromise.

Fresh, homemade coconut milk is also richer in vitamins, food enzymes and nutrients than coconut milk from a tin. Indeed, fresh coconut milk contains three times as much vitamin C as canned coconut milk and is richer in thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate and panthothenic acid. Moreover, fresh raw coconut milk contains vitamin E, a heat-sensitive, fat-soluble vitamin that is otherwise absent in canned coconut milk. Learning how to make coconut milk is, indeed, worthwhile for its nutrition benefits alone, let alone the culinary pleasure you’ll experience in tasting something truly fresh, creamy and markedly lacking in that unpleasant dull metallic aftertaste that comes from any tinned food.

Fortunately, learning how to make coconut milk is easy. So you can drop the cans and pick up a fresh coconut, widely available at most grocers as well as online, and make your own.

How to Make Coconut Milk

Learning how to make coconut milk is easy. Select a ripe coconut by holding it up to your ear and gently shaking it; if you hear the sweet slosh-slosh of liquid, you’ve got a good one. In this recipe for homemade coconut milk, we call for hot water which produces a richer coconut milk that’s higher in coconut oil; however, if you’re intent on making an unheated coconut milk, you can use cold filtered water.

Ingredients

2 brown coconuts
3 to 4 cups filtered water, preferably hot

Equipment

sharp knife
mixing bowl
hammer or rolling pin
kitchen towel
vegetable peeler
high-powered blender (like this one)
butter muslin (which you can get online)
mason jar or pitcher

Method

Pierce the eyes of the coconut with a sharp knife and drain coconut water into a mixing bowl. Split the coconuts by covering in a kitchen towel and smashing with a rolling pin or hammer.
With a sharp knife, pry the coconut meat from its husk, then peel off any remaining brown bits of skin that adhere to the coconut meat. Place the coconut flesh and coconut water in a blender, adding three to four cups hot water Blend until the coconut and water forms a smooth slurry.
Pour coconut mixture through a butter muslin or nut milk bag into a mason jar or pitcher. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible, and transfer the coconut milk to the refrigerator.

YIELD: about 1 quart.
TIME: 20 – 30 minutes (preparation), under 5 minutes (blending)
NOTE: Save the coconut pulp and dry it in your dehydrator. It can be used like any dessicated coconut – in pastries, baked goods, sweets and as a coating for fish and chicken.

1. Yang, et al. The antimicrobial activity of liposomal lauric acids against Propionibacterium acnes. Biomaterials. October 2009. 2. Soto, et al. Environmental causes of cancer: endocrine disruptors as carcinogens. National Reviews. Endocrinology. July 2010. 3. Bolli, et al. Bisphenol A impairs estradiol-induced protective effects against DLD-1 colon cancer cell growth. IUBMB Life. September 2010. 4. Weng, et al. Epigenetic influences of low-dose bisphenol A in primary human breast epithelial cells. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. October 2010.

Love this tutorial? Check out the others:

How to Render Lard

Learn why lard is actually more nourishing than you think, and learn how to render lard easily at home on the stove top just like your great-grandmother did.

How to Make Raw Milk Yogurt

Rich, creamy and full of beneficial bacteria, food enzymes and nourishing fats, learn how to make raw milk yogurt easily at home.

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A Recipe: BBQ Sauce That’s Hot, Sweet and Black as Sin

Jenny — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 01:25:51 +0000

Homemade barbecue sauce, sweet, hot and full of rich flavor, is one of our favorite indulgences. One of the last opportunities for summer barbecues lurks just around the corner, and we’re preparing for labor day by planning our last big picnic of the season: grass-fed brisket with homemade barbecue sauce, fresh tomato salad, plenty of sour pickles, grilled sweet corn, mixed potato salad with mizuna, blackberry ice cream with wildflower honey with a long draught of lemony, gingery water kefir to wash it all down. And we’ll break out the slip-n-slide and the music and the good times, celebrating the warmth of the summer sun one last time before the snows begin to hit again in a few weeks.

We like a barbecue sauce to be bold and rich and not for the faint of heart. After spending years looking for a good additive-, preservative-free barbecue sauce made from organic ingredients, we began making our own. It took a lot of trial and error to come up with a decent homemade barbecue sauce, but, eventually we settled on this one: a combination of tomato paste, molasses, unrefined cane sugar, onion, garlic and chipotle chilies. If you’re a touch faint of palate (or just don’t like breaking into beads of sweat as you eat your meal), go slowly in adding the chili powder. We love to slather this homemade barbecue sauce over grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork or even over a spatchcock chicken on the grill.

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

A combination of molasses, chipotle chili and tomato, this homemade barbecue is hot, sweet and black as sin. Pastured lard and fish sauce might seem, at first, like odd additions, but both help to flesh out the rich and complex flavor of the sauce. Take care to add the chipotle chili powder slowly, tasting along the way, lest you overseason the sauce – making it unbearably hot. Unless, of course, you’re culinary masochists and you like the lingering pain of a torturously hot sauce (like me).

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Ingredients

2 to 3 tablespoons pastured lard, bacon fat or coconut oil
1 small onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup tomato paste, preferably homemade
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup blackstrap molasses
1 cup whole, unrefined evaporated cane juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
up to 2 tablespoons chipotle chili powder

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Equipment

saucepan
woodenspoon
quart-sized mason jar with lid

Homemade Barbecue Sauce: Method

Melt up to three tablespoon pastured lard, bacon fat or coconut oil over a medium flame, then toss in the minced onion and garlic.
Fry the minced onion and garlic in the hot fat until fragrant and translucent. Allow its edges to caramelize a bit.
Reduce the heat to low, then spoon about 1/4 cup tomato paste into the saucepan. Take care because the tomato paste could splatter in the hot fat.
Stir one cup molasses, one cup whole unrefined evaporated cane juice and two tablespoons fish sauce into the tomato paste. Continue to stir the sauce together until the molasses completely dissolves into the tomato paste and the sauce becomes uniform in color.
Stir unrefined sea salt, onion powder and garlic powder into the sauce and continue to stir until the flavorings are fully dissolved in the sauce.
Gently and incrementally spoon the chipotle chili powder into the sauce, tasting it periodically and adding only as much heat as you can handle. Remember, the heat of the chili powder will increase as the sauce cooks and ages, so it may be wise to under-season it.
Continue to cook over a low flame for another twenty minutes, taking care not to let the sauce bubble.
Pour the sauce into a quart-sized mason jar and place it in the refrigerator.
Allow the flavors to marry for at least a day before you plan to serve the homemade barbecue sauce.

YIELD: about 1 quart

TIME: about 30 minutes (preparation and cooking), 24 hours to set

NOTE: While you can serve it immediately, this homemade barbecue sauce can really benefit from a day to allow the flavors to marry. If you serve it too soon, you will be able to distinctly identify the sauce’s prominent flavors individually: molasses, tomato, fish sauce, but by allowing it to rest for a day before you plan to serve it, those dominant flavors will mellow a bit as they marry together for a strikingly sweet and hot barbecue sauce. It will keep, refrigerated, for six months or longer.

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Baked Oatmeal with Dried Cranberries & Apricots

Jenny — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:20:14 +0000

Baked oatmeal – a staple in our home on the weekends – nourishes our family, providing a much-loved alternative to soaked oatmeal porridge. When my father, a man who rarely enjoys a home-cooked meal, comes to visit there is, inevitably, one imperative dish on the menu: baked oatmeal – all the better when it’s dotted with dried cranberries, apricots and nuts. I could pan-fry a great steak or roast a chicken so savory and herbaceous it could bring tears to your eyes, but it is always baked oatmeal that must greet him on his visits.

And why not? Baked oatmeal is both deeply nutritive and deeply satisfying. Steel cut oats are gently soaked overnight in water acidified by a touch of yogurt or fresh whey which helps to increase not only your body’s ability to better digest the grain, but also your body’s ability to better absorb its minerals. Oats are rich in minerals, including phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, iron and zinc, but due to the effects of naturally occurring antinutrients found in whole grain, such as phytic acid, those minerals due your body little good unless oats are properly prepared as they are in this recipe. Moreover, oats are a rich source of B vitamins including folate – that critical nutrient which is vital to reproductive health and the proper development of babies growing within their mothers’ wombs (read more about best sources for vitamins and minerals).(...)
Click here to read the rest of Baked Oatmeal with Dried Cranberries & Apricots (547 words)

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Fried Octopus (Better Than It Sounds!)

Jenny — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:45:16 +0000

The other day we were shopping at the major grocery store in the next town over. Our spring CSA boxes hadn’t started arriving and our stocked pantry had dwindled down to a few jars of apricots, nectarines and tomatoes so we were picking up some essentials. We rarely frequent big chains, preferring to keep our dollars in the local economy where possible. Our son, that adventerous eater I told you about in my recent post on redefining kids’ menus, fell in love with the whole octopus sitting on ice at the fish counter. At $12 / lb, it was a little out of our price range – especially a whole octopus, but I found some wild-caught frozen baby octopus for just $3.49 for two pounds and purchased that instead. I explained that if he liked the less expensive octopus, we might invest in the whole octopus at some point.

Just a touch intimidated, I worked on this recipe for fried octopus and served it over greens with my favorite seafood accompaniment: preserved lemon and parsley tapenade. While it doesn’t contain a lot of fat, it has a fantastic omega-3 to omega-6 ratio although that’s likely hindered through frying as in this recipe. You can also serve octopus stir-fried, braised or sashimi-style. And octopus earns a “Good” rating from the Seafood Watch Program.

And my wiley 3-year old who desperately wanted to try the whole octopus announced that this recipe is, of course, his favorite.

To make fried octopus, you’ll need:

2 lbs Octopus Pieces
1 Bay Leaf
1 ½ Cups Masa Harina
2 Pastured Eggs
¼ Cup Fresh Milk
Unrefined Sea Salt to Taste
Ghee, Palm Oil or Coconut Oil as needed

Instructions:

Boil octopus and bay leaf in water until cooked through and as tender as you can get it.
Mix remaining ingredients together to form a batter.
Heat ghee, palm or coconut oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.
Mix the octopus pieces into the batter until they’re fully coated.
Add battered octopus to the oil and reduce heat.
Fry octopus until golden brown, stirring and turning as needed.
Serve with Preserved Lemon and Parsley Tapenade for some vitamin C and probiotic goodness.

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Cinnamon Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

Jenny — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:43:24 +0000

On a Saturday morning when my Dad was visiting, I fixed brunch and whipped these sweet potato hashbrowns up on a whim. After that first taste, they have quickly become a staple for our weekend brunch. Instead of white potatoes, or even fingerling potatoes as in my Fingerling Potato & Zucchini Hashbrowns, this recipe makes use of richly colored and flavored garnet yams. Yams are a good source of the antioxidant beta carotene, vitamin C, potassium and manganese. As you’ll recall from our discussions on fat soluble vitamins, beta carotene is not true vitamin A; rather, it must be converted by your body into vitamin A and the human body is grossly inefficient at converting the nutrient into vitamin A. Take care though: beta carotene in and of itself is a powerful nutrient and you should definitely eat fruits and vegetables replete with beta carotene as well as other nutrients. This recipe is fabulously simple to make: it only has 3 simple ingredients! To make Garnet Yam Hashbrowns, you’ll need:

3 Medium-sized Organic Garnet Yams or Sweet Potatoes
3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil (see sources)
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon

Instructions:

Peel yams and slice them in thin matchsticks.
Mix cinnamon with sliced yams.
Heat 2 tablespoons coconut oil in the bottom of a cast iron skillet over medium heat until it’s melted.
Reduce heat slightly, then add the cinnamon-coated yams.
Top the yams with the remaining tablespoon of coconut oil.
Cover and continue to cook until the yams are tender.
When the yams are tender and fragrant, uncover them and flip them over so the top of the yams can brown.
Continue to cook until the yams are browned and fully tender.

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Mothers Day Finds for Nourished Mamas

Jenny — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:06:24 +0000

Mothers day is only a week away. So here’s Nourished Kitchen picks for traditional foods-loving and nourished moms. Tired of celebrating mothers day with gooey cards and grocery store carnations? Leave this post casually open on the screen, or, for you less-subtle types: email the link to your partners.

Equipment for a Nourished Kitchen

Yogurt Maker

Euro-cuisine Yogurt Maker with Glass Jars: If you regularly make yogurt for your family, or if you anticipate regularly making yogurt for your family, you should consider picking up a yogurt maker. It makes yogurt making so, remarkably, easy and clean. The temperature remains constant and all you have to do is mix the milk with starter and pour it into the individual containers. I like this yogurt maker in particular because the containers are glass instead of plastic, so you needn’t worry about chemicals leaching into your family’s food. It’s available on Amazon for $39.95.

Excalibur Dehydrator

5-tray Deluxe Excalibur Dehydrator: Excalibur dehydrators are widely considered to be the best dehydrators on the market. Dehydrating enables you to preserve the summer harvest without overcooking your food through modern food preservation methods like canning. This allows you to keep much of the fresh food’s nutrients intact. While this particular dehydrator is on my wish list, we’ve used our dehydrator for drying grains after sprouting, making beef jerky and drying apples, pears and tomatoes for snacks. You can purchase this dehydrator at Cultures for Health for $189.95 and it comes with a book on preserving.

Ice Cream Maker

Cuisinart 1- ½ Quart Ice Cream Maker: Everyone needs a little treat now and then, and that treat is ice cream in our house. With fresh raw cream, fresh raw whole milk, fresh pastured egg yolks, a touch of honey and plenty of fresh fruit you can make an unbelievably delicious ice cream that is also real food-friendly. Try this recipe for Really Raw Ice Cream with Wildflower Honey and Blackberries from my healthy recipe files or this recipe for frozen yogurt at Cultures for Health. At any rate, this ice cream maker is automatic and makes small 1- ½ quart batches. You can purchase it from Amazon for $46.95

KitchenAid Mixer

KitchenAid 5-quart Mixer: I purchased my KitchenAid mixer in college and I swear that I’ve used it every single day since. It is an integral and critical component of our kitchen. We use it for obvious things like mixing batters for citrus coconut madeleines and other healthy sweet things and desserts and for sprouted grain breads, but we also use it for mixing up my classic meatloaf and making homemade mayonnaise. It really does get used every day. You can purchase this mixer from Amazon at $239.99 and you can even pick a color that’ll match your kitchen.

Kim Chi Maker

Kimchi Maker: If you’ve read Nourished Kitchen for any length of time you know how much I value probiotic-rich foods like real sauerkraut, real kimchi and other vegetable ferments. If you don’t, check out these posts: fermented food and the benefits of lactic acid fermentation and Real Pickles. Simply put, they are an essential aspect of a healthy diet. You need to eat them and regularly. We try to eat at least one fermented food at every meal: yogurt with breakfast, kombucha with a snack, sauerrÃ¼ben with supper and so on. You can even check out my recipes for real sauerkraut and Moroccan-preserved lemons. Since fermented foods comprise such a large portion of our diet, we need an easy way to prepare them and we use these kimchi makers from the Raw Diet store. We actually liked the first one we purchased so much that we bought a second since. The ferments come out perfectly every single time and the instructions are easy to use. You can purchase a kimchi maker for $24.97, a seriously good deal.

Foods for a Nourished Kitchen

Yogurt Starter

Yogurt & Sourdough Starters: If you can’t drop down for the big items listed above, you can always pick up some yogurt and sourdough starter cultures at a much better price. Plus, if properly cared for, these starters will self-perpetuate. In essence, if you keep them alive and healthy with regular re-culturing, you’ll always have access to fresh yogurt or sourdough bread or kombucha or dairy kefir or water kefir or any number of delicious, probiotic-rich foods. You can purchase starter cultures at Cultures for Health where prices range from $9.99 to $16.99.

Shiloh Farms

Sprouted Grain Flours: If you can’t afford the time to sprout, dry and grind your own sprouted grain flours or if you can’t afford the equipment it takes to sprout your own flours, buying sprouted grain flour presents an excellent alternative. I recently had the pleasure of trying Shiloh Farms Essential Eating ® organic sprouted grain flours and they are phenomenal. Plus, they’re much, much better than the sprouted grain flours I make at home. The bread bakes beautifully. Not sure how to use sprouted grain flours? Try these recipes from my healthy recipe files: maple pecan pie with sprouted spelt crust, sprouted grain crÃªpes, sprouted spelt & maple shortbread. If you choose to eat grain, eating sprouted grain is your best option as it’s easier to digest and is more nutrient-dense than standard whole-grain flours. You can try out Shiloh Farms Essential Eating ® organic sprouted spelt flour for $9.19 for a 2-lb bag or buy it in bulk.

Coconut Oil

Organic Coconut Oil: Coconut oil is a fantastic addition to your pantry and we use it in a lot of our dishes. It’s a remarkably healthy fat replete with lauric acid which is an immune booster. It’s also fantastic as a skincare product with a natural SPF of 5. Here’s some info from the Nourished Kitchen archives outlining just why you should include coconut oil in your diet: Fats for Cooking & Fats to Eat Uncooked or check out these recipes that use coconut oil: Soft Tacos with Halibut & Beef, Baked Oats, Roasted Butternut Squash, Apple & Quince Mash. We use Nutiva coconut oil to the exclusion of others. It is reasonably priced, great cooking, good for cosmetic uses and has a wonderful subtle coconut flavor. You can pick up Nutiva organic coconut oil for as little as $11.99

Services for a Nourished Kitchen

Menu Mailers Subscription: If ever there’s a gift fitting mother’s day, this is it – a subscription service that will plan out healthy meals for your family. It’s hard to take the time to plan out meals and shopping lists based on healthy, seasonal foods. Especially if you’re new to traditional foods, it’s also difficult to plan out to do lists. If you’re having lentil soup on Friday, when do you start soaking the lentils? If you’re planning sourdough pancakes, when do you soak the flour? CookingTF.com’s service helps to plan healthy meals for your family and it comes with a seasonal produce list. You can try the service for a month for as little as $5.40 or get a full-year subscription for $46.80. Use this link to take advantage of a 10% discount. Banner image courtesy of Garrison Photo and SXC.

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Fats for Cooking & Fats to Eat Uncooked

Jenny — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:30:17 +0000

Fats contribute a great deal to food and cooking, but not every fat is suitable for every purpose. Just as not every fat is suitable for cooking, neither is every oil available on your supermarket shelves suitable for a nutritious and healthy diet. Certain fats such as beef tallow and coconut oil have been used for a very long time, while other fats such as cottonseed oil are very new to the human diet.

As a general rule, saturated fats are suitable for cooking while monounsaturated fats are suitable for light cooking and polyunsaturated fats should not be cooked at all. Most cooking fats contain a combination of each saturated, mono- and poly-unsaturated fats.

Saturated Fats for Cooking

Saturated fats, thanks to their molecular structure, are heat stable. You can identify saturated fat readily because it stays solid at room temperature. Due to its molecular stability, saturated fat is not as subject to oxidation as the less stable mono- and polyunsaturated oils. Saturated fats are not chemically altered by cooking and so are suitable for high- and low-heat cooking. You can, and should, certainly eat them raw as well.

Beef Suet from Grass-finished Animals
Beef Tallow from Grass-finished Animals
Mutton Tallow from Grass-finished Animals
Unrefined Cocoa Butter
Unrefined Coconut Oil
Palm Kernel Oil
Ghee from Grass-fed Cows

Monounsaturated Fats to Cook Gently

Some fats are contain ample saturated fat which is heat-stable and suitable for cooking, but also contain large amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids which are less heat-stable and more likely to oxidize than saturated fats (but are less likely to oxidize compared to polyunsaturated fats). Alternatively, as in the case of butter, contain other compounds like milk solids which may necessitate cooking them gently. The following fats should be heated gently due to a high monounsaturated fat content, but are still good fats for cooking.

Lard from Pastured Hogs
Bacon Grease from Pastured Hogs
Goose Fat from Pastured Birds
Duck Fat from Pastured Birds
Schmaltz from Pastured Chickens
Butter (While it should be classified more as a saturated fat due to its fatty acid profile, butter also contains milk fats which lower its smoke point and therefore it should be eaten raw or gently cooked.)

Monounsaturated & Polyunsaturated Fats to Eat Fresh & Raw

Polyunsaturated fats, like the other fats, play a vital role in health and wellness; however, they are not stable fats like their saturated counterparts. Polyunsaturated fats go rancid easily and oxidize quickly when heated. These fats should be traditionally prepared through cold-pressing and should be left in their natural and unrefined state. US readers should take great care in purchasing cold-pressed oils as the term “cold pressing” is not regulated in the United States. Expeller pressed oils extract the oil from its source under great pressure, and pressure creates friction and friction creates heat – sometimes a great deal of heat, so unless you know for certain that the pressure created by the expeller during extraction did not heat the oil to excess, it’s best to avoid expeller pressed oils.

Traditional cold pressed oils offer a complex flavor not achieved through other means, so not only does your body benefit from cold pressing but your meals benefit as well. Polyunsaturated fats are delicate fats and should be treated accordingly: they’re not suitable for cooking, but can be used to dress salads and condiments.

Many polyunsaturated fats – particularly nut oils – are very high in Omega 6 fatty acids. While omega 6 fatty acids play an important role in health, they are too prevalent in the diet of most people, so I have excluded them from this list.

Extra Virgin Unrefined Olive Oil (Olive oil is comprised mostly of monounsaturated fats, and can be used for very light cooking; however, that destroys its vitamin E and I simply prefer to eat it uncooked.)
Flaxseed Oil

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2-style Tacos: Halibut & Beef

Jenny — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:49:23 +0000

This soft taco recipe is easy to prepare and adaptable to fish, beef, chicken or even pork. Serving a variety of meat is nice, coupled with a variety of toppings is nice too. Coupling coconut oil with beef and halibut ensures plenty of good fats while the fresh vegetables and spice rub offer plenty of antioxidants and micronutrients.

To make these tacos, you’ll need the following:

For the Pan

1 lb Halibut Steaks
1 lb Flank Steak
1 recipe Mexican-inspired Spice Rub
2 Red Peppers
2 Yellow Onions
3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil or Pastured Lard

Garnishes

1 Small Yellow Cabbage, Chopped
1 Small Head Loose-lead Lettuce, Chopped
1 Small Bunch Cilantro, Chopped
2 Avocados, Chopped
2 Limes, Sliced Thin
Sour Cream
Raw Milk Cheddar Cheese
Fresh Salsa (I like this salsa rich in probiotics)
Sprouted Corn Tortillas, or other Sprouted Grain Tortilla

Instructions:

Separately, chop the halibut and the beef into bite-sized pieces.
Separately, toss the halibut and beef into ½ cup spice rub, reserve.
Clean the red peppers, removing the seeds and membranes then slice thinly.
Thinly slice the onions.
Heat 1 tablespoon fat in a very, very hot cast-iron skillet until it’s sizzling.
Add peppers and onions, and stir-fry until they’re just blistered.
Remove vegetables from the pan and keep warm.
Add another tablespoon fat to the skillet. When the fat is sizzling, add the spiced chopped beef to the pan and stir-fry until done.
Remove beef from the pan, add remaining oil and stir-fry halibut until done.
Serve halibut with cabbage, cilantro & avocado and serve the steak with cheese, peppers and salsa.

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Roasted Butternut Squash, Quince & Apple Puree

Jenny — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:10:20 +0000

This is a super-tasty, super-easy sidedish for autumn and winter. The squash is rich in beta carotene, while the quinces and apples provide vitamin C and manganese. Butternut squash is a real powerhouse of nutrition. It’s rich in fiber with 1 cup yeilding 6 grams of fiber, plus it’s rich in vitamin C, folate, vitamin K, potassium and manganese. The coconut oil offers a nice boost of lauric acid with its anti-viral effects.

This dish serves six generously, and costs only $0.75 per serving.

To make Roasted Butternut Squash, Quince & Apple Puree, you’ll need the following:

1 Medium-sized Organic Butternut Squash
1 Organic Quince
3 Organic Apples
3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
Pinch of Real Salt as Desired

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 º F.
Peel, seed, clean and chop the butternut squash into 1-inch pieces.
Peel, core and chop the apples and quince into 1-inch pieces.
Mix the quince, apple and butternut squash together so their evenly distributed in a casserole dish.
Dot the mixture with 2 tablespoons coconut oil.
Bake the mixture until the fruits and squash are fork-tender.
Pour the squash, apple and quince pieces into a mixer and, using the paddle attachment, mix until the squash is well blended. The apples and quince will remain slightly chunky.
Add the remaining 1 tablespoon coconut oil, mix again and serve.

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Fried Bananas

Jenny — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:30:09 +0000

While this dish hardly qualifies as health food, it’s surprisingly good for you (as far as desserts are concerned). Bananas are rich in the minerals potassium and manganese while the coconut flour is rich in saturated fats like lauric acid as well as fiber and protein. This recipe is also a great way to use up less than perfect bananas without having to make banana bread for the umpteenth time.

To make these coconut fried bananas, you’ll need the following:

Some Bananas, Peeled (I’ve used mini bananas here.)
A Big Gob of Coconut Oil (what is that? maybe a half cup?)
About ¼ cup of Coconut Flour
2 Teaspoons Dehydrated Cane Juice
3 Eggs from Happy, Pastured Chickens

Instructions:

Crack open your eggs and beat them thoroughly.
Now add your dehydrated cane juice. Dehydrated cane juice is also sold under the brand names sucanat and rapadura. I can’t find rapadura through my co-op and I’m never quite sure how to pronounce sucanat. Is it soo-CAN-not? Is it suck-CAN-nat? Anyway whisk your the rich crystalline sweet stuff into the eggs and follow it up with your coconut flour.
Now mix it all together until you have a thick, pasty mess that should be rich and golden in color from the pastured eggs and dehydrated can juice.
Now it’s time to batter up those bananas. Roll them around in that sludge and get your fingers dirty.
Heat your oil to prepare for frying the bananas.
So toss all the bananas in your hot pan and watch them sizzle.
Turn them over and brown them on the other side. Get them nice and crispy on the outside, and they’ll be nice and creamy on the inside.
Serve them with whipped cream and enjoy. I really do mean it: ENJOY!

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Baby Chioggia Beets with Citrus Glaze

Jenny — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:01:36 +0000

The chioggia beet is an Italian heirloom variety noted for its white flesh and lovely red rings. It’s a pretty beet. Beets have a bad rap, and they’re terribly loathed among vegetables. Poor things. They’re lovely, really. If you don’t like beets or if you are loathe to try them, the chioggia beet is a good option for you as they’re milder in flavor than their huge blood-colored cousins. At any rate, you really ought to eat beets: they’re full of betacyanin which fights cancer according to some studies.

To make Baby Chioggia Beets with Citrus Glaze:

About 4 Baby Chioggia Beets per Person
2 Tablespoons Organic Butter from Grassfed Cows or Coconut Oil (see sources)
1 Organic Orange

Instructions:

Cut the tops of the beets and peel them.
Chop the beets into ½-inch dice.
Boil beets until tender, but not soft.
Heat butter or coconut oil in pan over medium heat.
When the fat is melted, add the beets in the butter or coconut oil until they’re well-coated.
Halve the orange, piercing its flesh and squeeze the juice out into the pan.
Continue to cook until the juice becomes syrupy.
Serve warm.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2007. | Permalink |