The Nourishing Cook

Low Carb Recipes

Pickled Red Peppers

Red bell peppers taste good, add color to dishes, and best of all, they're good for many of us. They're so easy to toss into dishes when they're on hand, but many of us don't regularly stock our vegetable pantries with them, so we find ourselves going back and forth to the store for them. Using this recipe to preserve fresh peppers will help you with this problem. If you're lucky enough to grow a lot of them during the summer months this is a also a great way to put some aside for a few months while you continue to eat fresh ones.

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6 Ways to Grow and Eat Your Own Sprouts

Many of us enjoy eating sprouts. I've been keen on them ever since I first tried them in the 1980s. They were all the rage and I'm fairly certain that nearly everyone back then ate them at one point or another. Eating an avocado sandwich with alfalfa sprouts on whole wheat bread (or in a pita) was a kind of revelation for many of us. Who knew vegetarian food could taste so good!?! Luckily sprouts are still with us, and we now have many additional options aside from alfalfa.

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Dress Up Your Veggies with Tahini Sauce

Tahini paste is made of hulled and ground up sesame seeds and is an ingredient commonly used in Greek, Middle Eastern, Israeli, Turkish and North African food. It is one of the main ingredients in hummus and baba ghanoush as well so this means it's likely you've had it before and you may not have even realized it! This recipe from Nourishing Traditions is so versatile and will add a Middle Eastern flair to even simple vegetables.

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Steak Tartare – Fancy and Easy!

I know. Raw beef is not going to be for everyone. Yes, then there is that tiny matter of a raw egg yolk—or two. I simply cannot say this loudly enough: it is worth the plunge! Steak tartare tastes amazing, is filling, and is a whole food recipe that's difficult to argue with because it's simple, pure, and true.

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How to Make Shrimp Seafood Stock

For some reason I thought seafood stock would be hard to make. However, after trying it I realized, it's actually the easiest and quickest of the broths to make homemade! Plus it tastes so good in soup recipes and sauces.

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Liver Dumpling Soup

Liver is very nutritious and yet it's an often overlooked dinner item. Yes, it does have a strong flavor and taste, but, believe it or not, this is not a new problem. Cooks have been trying to alter and change the taste for generations and this recipe benefits from those efforts.

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Russian Shrimp Soup Recipe

This was a new soup to me but it’s a common nutritious soup eaten in many Eastern European countries. Don’t let its exoticness turn you away. It’s a cousin to borscht, and amazingly is also gluten free, low carb and grain free (primal).

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How to Can Tomato Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes – the EASIER way!

Last week, my BFF and I made tomato sauce from fresh roma tomatoes, and canned them in mason jars in a water bath. We did about 52 quarts of sauce total! We started out doing things the HARD way, and then over the course of a couple hours eliminated steps until we were at the bare essentials. Learn how to can your own tomato sauce with our EASY method below, and SKIP the step of boiling and slipping the skins off of the tomatoes…

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EASY Cream of Mushroom Soup Recipe

When I was a kid I absolutely LOVED Campbell's brand cream of mushroom soup. Back then, we just ate it as soup, not as an ingredient for other recipes as much. And it had a lot of mushrooms in it! Well I haven't tasted that soup for at least 6 years but now I know that it's actually easy (and way healthier) to make your own. And it doesn't take as long as you think!

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Korean Beef Bulgogi Recipe from Nourishing Traditions

I've been eating bulgogi (Korean barbecued beef) since before my twin girls came home from Korea 17 years ago. This dish is delicious with kimchi or any of the fermented vegetables, especially ginger carrots, or both! I didn't start making this at home until a year or two ago though, and I didn't realize how easy it actually was to make. Most restaurants use the regular soy sauce to marinate their meat instead of gluten free tamari, so it's hard to find a gluten free bulgogi out of the house.

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Carpaccio – Raw Beef Italian Style!

The first time I had carpaccio (italian style raw beef), I was on a business trip in Israel. Business trips are great for trying new foods, since you're not footing the bill! I was a bit nervous eating raw beef, but Israel's treatment of beef is in general much better than the US. The taste of the raw beef with the sauce and the capers was amazing. And since the dish is raw it is such a cooling appetizer to have on a hot summer night, and the protein is very easily broken down by the body. It even can be a light dinner with a small salad on top and a piece of crusty bread.

I think this dish lends itself even better at home, where you can control more easily the quality of the beef. I use grass-fed beef filet for this dish, and it really is a great way to serve beef as an appetizer to guests when you don't want to spend a lot.

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Spiced Gazpacho – a Perfect Hot Summer Night Supper

Are you so hot at night that cooking seems like a huge chore, and your appetite is low anyway? Gazpacho is the perfect hot summer evening start to a meal, or can even be a meal in itself with the addition of some fresh cold shrimp or prawns. It's a blended vegetable soup that is not cooked, and served cold. Super refreshing and tasty when you use the bounty of vegetables from summertime!

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Egg Mustard Sauce – an Easy Alternative to Hollandaise

This is a simple yet rich sauce that takes advantage of all of the abundance of farm fresh eggs this time of year, and an easy alternative to making fussy hollandaise sauce. The sauce is great for so many different recipes… a sandwich spread, vegetable dipping, or even on meat or fish from the grill. Since the yolks are added raw for extra nutrition, ensure that the source of your eggs are super fresh. I get mine from a few different neighbors and farms around my area. The yolks are almost bright orange so they make this sauce a deep yellow!

Don't be afraid of the fat in this recipe… it's full of good fats and tons of nutrients, especially if you use homemade mayonnaise partly made with coconut oil.

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This Pot Roast Will Melt in Your Mouth!

I know that it's probably hot where you are right now (if you're in the US), but I couldn't resist this Nourishing Traditions recipe!

Here's what Sally Fallon has to say about this recipe: “In the German-speaking areas of Europe, housewives marinated beef or game several days in buttermilk before cooking it. The results are extremely tender and flavorful.”

Before this recipe, I had always made pot roast the ‘regular' way of just cooking the meat without marinating it in buttermilk. Let me tell you, the result with this recipe was a much different, basically melt-in-your-mouth pot roast! I'll never make it another way again.

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Easy Homemade Ranch Dressing or Dip

Ranch dressing is my favorite, but I refuse to buy those packets of seasonings that may have questionable ingredients, not to mention those yucky bottled dressings with added sugar! So I developed this easy, inexpensive homemade (no sugar) ranch dressing recipe that literally takes less than 5 minutes to mix up and doesn't even require a blender or food processor. I should call this “Kim's Lazy Ranch Dressing” recipe.

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Are You Still Buying Bottled Salad Dressing? Try This Instead!

I started making this blender dressing over a year ago, and it is the easiest and best salad dressing that I've ever made! This dressing is reminiscent of that Olive Garden (from what I remember) Italian salad dressing, except a bit creamier and less acidic. It's also packed with good fats, and lasts a long time in the fridge (a couple weeks for me). I love that there is no added mayonnaise in this dressing, it makes it own!

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Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

My husband ate this soup! He is not a soup lover, but he ate it and liked it! This sounds like a small thing but in our house, it's major progress. Since I've known him he won't eat 99% of soups or stews. This is also a great way to use any turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving.

This soup is extremely versatile, with the variety of garnishes that are possible. If you don't make it too spicy, kids will also like it due to the fried chip garnish. Other garnish ideas: cilantro, sliced radish, olives, sour cream. Use what you have on hand to make this an economical meal option.

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Eggnog is NOT Just for the Holidays

Eggnog makes a quick and tasty breakfast, and if you have a milk allergy, you can also make it dairy/casein free with coconut milk tonic (or even just coconut milk)! This recipe has really been hitting the spot for me this week and is very satisfying. It's not just for the holidays, but is great any time of year. I love it with nutmeg and cinnamon!

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My Favorite Salad: Sauerkraut Coleslaw

In this recipe inspired by Nourishing Traditions, raw fermented sauerkraut is bumped up from condiment to side dish, and it's a well deserved promotion. I love the salty sour sweetness of this salad. Really this is good any time of day, I've eaten it for breakfast with some good bacon, but it makes a great last minute side dish for dinner or lunch. This also may be a good introduction to raw fermented vegetables (due to its slight sweetness) to those who are not used to the pleasing sour taste of sauerkraut.

Try it, and let me know what you think in the comments!

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Carrot is the New Pumpkin

Carrot is the new pumpkin! Yes I know there's many of the larger orange orbs around right now in most areas, but please don't forget the lowly carrot. Carrots deserve your support as they smaller, tasty and more portable! Okay, yes that was weird, but carrots bring out the weirdness in me, maybe it's all of the vitamins, they give me more energy.

I made this simple soup today with about 15 minutes of hands-on time. For a quick lunch or first course, you can't go wrong, and the price is right as you can grow the two main ingredients yourself!

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Pesto Time!

It's fall and we are getting a TON of rain. I had to cut the basil plants down today, so I thought I would harvest everything and make pesto! I can't wait to have a yummy Friday night dinner of pesto on brown rice pasta.

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My Husband Ate This Soup and Liked It!

For those of you that have been following the blog for awhile, you're familiar with my husband Shawn. He is a meat & potatoes guy, the more beef and bacon, the better. He has also been averse to ANY soups and stews for pretty much his whole life, even if each separate ingredient is something that he likes (beef stew for example). This leaves out a large chunk of easy (and inexpensive) recipes that he won't eat which has been a huge challenge. He will eat chili out of a can, seafood or clam chowder but that pretty much is the limit.

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Squash Your Pre-conceived Ideas of Squash!

I now have some really pretty yellow and green striped Delicata Squash, thanks to some wonderful organic seeds! What I really like about this heirloom variety is that it's kind of halfway between a summer squash and a winter squash, and you can eat the skin since it is thin enough. If you didn't grow any, don't despair because you can probably pick these up at your nearest farmer's market right now!

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Your Body Will LOVE This Kimchi!

As some of you know, our twin girls are Korean. They have been embracing their ‘asian-ness' quite a bit in the last year, in different ways. One of our girls has embraced Korean food with gusto, which has surprised us since she's always been our ‘mac & cheese' girl. She tried kimchi for the first time about a year ago. She said this about her first experience with kimchi:

“I hated the taste of it at first. But my body liked it, so I had to try it again. Then I started to like it.”

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The New Hamburger Helper

This is the ‘new' Hamburger Helper in our house! Not that we've eaten much HH lately, but I do admit to buying it quite a bit when the girls were little (ugh). I call this recipe ‘hash' in my house, and the family loves it. The best thing? It's free of many allergens: gluten free, casein free, dairy free, grain free and so is suitable for those following SCD, GAPS, or Paleo/Primal diet. You can serve this as a ‘one dish meal' or serve it alongside some raw vegetables for variety. You can also add a higher percentage of meat for more of a protein punch.

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