I made this simple tomato soup tonight in about three minutes, it was amazingly easy! This soup doesn’t need any thickeners at all so it’s naturally gluten free and low carb.

Tips for making Tomato Soup

• Dressing up this soup for guests is easy – just add toppings! Some chopped basil, homemade croutons and parmesan cheese would do nicely.
• Add fresh chopped herbs to the soup itself at the end of cooking if you like.
• Serve this soup with homemade crackers.

Simple Tomato Soup

Rating: 4 forks (key)

Difficulty:

Easy

Ingredients:

12 ounces tomato sauce or diced tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 cup heavy cream (or half/half or whole milk)
sea salt & pepper

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in saucepan. If using diced tomatoes, use stick blender to make the soup smooth. Heat on medium high about 5-10 minutes but do not boil.

Photo courtesy of Rooey202 on Flickr

Wow the response to the Nourished Kitchen eCourse giveaway was amazing! I didn’t expect to get so many wonderful, well-written entries.

Now if you didn’t win, please don’t despair, as Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen has decided to give everyone that entered a small gift. So please watch your email as I will be sending out the details of that soon.

Ok well I won’t put it off any longer… the winner is….

Lisa Israel and her sister Denise!

Lisa gave me permission to post her entry. Thank-you to everyone that entered and please watch your email!

I love my sister; she is my best friend. I would do anything for her. We may have fought like cats and dogs when we were kids, but now not a day goes by that we don’t talk on the phone.

My sister embraced organic eating long before I did, and I strived to follow her example. Now I am exploring more traditional ways of preparing foods, and once again my sister and I are trying to learn about it together.  I found the cookbook, “Nourishing Traditions” a little over a year ago, then she bought a copy, and now we trade tips and ideas on different recipes in the cookbook.

Lately, times have been tough for my sister. Without going into all the details, they, like so many people in our country, have been presented with many challenges. She and her husband battled infertility, her husband was laid off from his job over a year ago, and both my sister and niece have battled various health issues. While nutrition can’t solve the current problems with the economy, my sister and I both believe that the foods we eat definitely have an effect on our health and the health of our families.

A couple years ago my sister had major bowel surgery where three significant portions of her small intestines were removed. While the surgery solved some of her digestive problems, it also created new ones. Over the past year, her ten year old daughter has battled bad kidney stones. Last month my niece had two surgical procedures to address a large stone that was lodged in a sensitive area of her kidney, and neither procedure went well. Thankfully the stone was finally destroyed last week in yet another procedure! The bad news is that the doctor found evidence of continued damage in her kidneys, and she will have to manage her diet and the condition of her kidneys for the rest of her life.

My sister and I both believe that the health issues in her family can be improved with better nutrition. However, learning more traditional ways of preparing wholesome, nutritious meals hasn’t been as easy as simply opening a cookbook. The loss of my brother-in-law’s income and the medical challenges in the family have added much stress to their lives and reduced any “free time” for experimenting in the kitchen. My sister needs guidance on how to budget, organize, and prepare nourishing weekly menus for her family. Also, we need more than just words on a cookbook page to help us understand the techniques for better food preparation. Jenny’s Real Food on a Budget eCourse is exactly what my sister needs, and a wonderful blessing we could share!

This is a great, easy and tasty Nourishing Traditions dessert recipe. My family was scraping their bowls to get every last bit of custard! I have to admit though, I totally messed it up the first night by adding TWICE as much sweetener as the recipe calls for, by accident. I figured it out after the custards were baked and decided to serve them anyway to see if the family would eat them. They totally wouldn’t eat it! I think their sweet tooths are starting to die down a bit, yaah! The second time it turned out really well though.

Tips for making Baked Custard

• If you have a vanilla bean, split it in half and scrape all of the seeds into the milk while it heats up. Also throw in the empty pods for flavor and just pick them out prior to filling the cups.
• Instead of vanilla, try it with cinnamon and nutmeg instead for a twist!
• Use your leftover egg whites to make Kimaroon cookies. I am going to try my best to get this name to catch on, haha.

Baked Custard

Rating: 4 forks (key)

Difficulty:

Easy

Page in NT: 545

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream, not ultrapasteurized
1/4 cup honey or Rapadura
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Preparation:

Warm milk and cream gently over a low flame. Meanwhile, beat Rapadura or honey with egg yolks. Slowly add milk and cream mixture to eggs, beating constantly. Blend in vanilla and pour into individual custard cups. Place the custard cups in a pan of hot water and bake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the custard comes out clean. Chill well.

There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.

This is one of my favorite Sunday (or really any night) dinner, roasted chicken with vegetables. And it’s really a very easy dinner, as it’s a one pot meal in the oven! Well, not counting the gravy I guess. Doesn’t it look yummy in this picture? My husband is getting great at taking pictures.

Tips for Making Roast Chicken

• You can make this with salt/pepper and the chicken will still be good. But flavor is much improved when you add lemon, garlic, salt and pepper and herbs into the cavity.
• When chicken is cooking try not to pierce the skin with a fork… you want to keep the juices in as much as possible.
• Try roasting your chicken breast side down for the first half of cooking, makes for an even more juicy white meat.
• Make sure your garlic is fresh and not sprouted at all. Do not discard the garlic when done cooking but squeeze out the roasted cloves out of each half and serve it at the table mixed with butter for the bread.
• The pan sauce is gluten free, but sometimes I make chicken gravy instead.
• Add carrots and potatoes to the roasting pan too, as I did!

Sally Fallon’s Roasted Chicken

Rating: 4 forks (key)

Difficulty:

Easy

Page in NT: 280

Ingredients:

1 roasting chicken, about 4 pounds
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced (or cut up into chunks)
2 whole heads of garlic
3 Tablespoons melted butter [TNC: or bacon grease]
sea salt and pepper
several sprigs of fresh thyme, oregano or tarragon
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
4 cups chicken broth
1 Tablespoon gelatin

Preparation:

Strew onion slices in stainless steel roasting pan. Cut optional heads of garlic in half and place, cut side down, in pan. Stuff fresh herbs into the cavity of the chicken and place on a rack in the roasting pan, underside up. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. To turn chicken, insert a wooden spoon into the cavity. Lift chicken and rotate so that top side is up. Brush with more butter, season with salt and pepper and return to oven. Bake another hour. Remove chicken to a carving board and cut into individual pieces. Reserve chicken pieces and garlic in a warm oven while making sauce.

Squeeze the garlic cloves out of the heads and serve separately for spreading onto whole grain bread.

Remove rack from the baking pan. You may pour off the fat if you wish, but it is not necessary. Pour in wine and bring to a boil, stirring to loosen onion slices. Add stock and optional gelatin and reduce ot about half by vigorous boiling. Strain sauce into a small saucepan and keep warm over a low flame.

There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.

I was just told of a fantastic contest offered by my fellow Real Food Media blogger, Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen. She is giving away two free Real Food on a Budget eCourses for two of my readers! That is a $120 value for two very lucky TNC readers!

Here’s how it works…

All you need to do is write an essay between 300-500 words nominating a friend for the eCourse, detailing why they should win a free Real Food on a Budget eCourse. If your essay is picked you BOTH win a free scholarship to Nourished Kitchen’s eCourse!

You need to act fast though…

The deadline to submit the essay is 11am Eastern US time on Tuesday May 25th. The winners will be announced on Wednesday May 26th, along with another special surprise for all of my readers. Please submit your entries to me via email, kim@theNourishingCook.com.

This is what you’ll win

You’ll win two free eCourses, one for you AND one for the friend that you nominated. With the eCourse, you also get LIFETIME access to the materials, and also the user forum!

Who will you nominate?

I used to HATE meatloaf as a kid, and to this day I don’t know why. The meatloaf my mom made was good, not weird or anything. But for some reason I didn’t like it until my 20′s, and now I could eat it once a week and not get tired of it.

Sally Fallon’s meatloaf recipe from Nourishing Traditions is slightly different from my typical meatloaf in that it has some fresh finely chopped vegetables in it. My daughter was reading the recipe this morning and said ‘oh no’ about the vegetables, but it was actually a welcome addition to a typically heavy dish. I also mixed the meatloaf in my food processor for the first time, which gave it a uniform consistency, unlike all of my previous attempts.

Tips for making Meat Loaf

• I omitted the cream from Sally’s recipe as I felt it would be too watery. Glad that I did because I used grass-fed hamburger that was not super lean. So the bread crumbs soaked up some of the CLA ridden tallow instead of it seeping out into the baking pan. This makes the meatloaf less dense and more moist. But if your beef is super lean you may want to add it.
• I like to add the ketchup into the meatloaf, not on top but that’s just preference.
• Sally calls this meatloaf ‘spicy’ because of the addition of red pepper flakes, but I thought it was the perfect balance, not too spicy. I think it would be fine even for children.
• This recipe is easily made gluten free by substituting gluten free bread crumbs (made from Pamela’s baking mix or other gluten free bread)

Spicy Meatloaf

Rating: 4 forks (key) This is a favorite dinner at our house

Difficulty:

Easy

Page in NT: 356

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground grass-fed beef hamburer
1/2 pound ground heart (optional)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
4 Tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon dried chile red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon cracked pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole grain bread crumbs
1 cup cream [TNC: I omitted]
1 egg
1 Tablespoon fish sauce (optional)
4 Tablespoons tomato paste or ketchup

Preparation:

Saute onions, carrots, and celery in butter until soft. Add red pepper flakes, thyme, salt and pepper and stir around. Meanwhile, soak bread crumbs in cream.

Have a 9 inch by 13 inch pyrex pan ready. Using your hands [TNC: or food processor], mix meat with sauteed vegetables, soaked bread, egg and optional fish sauce. Form into a loaf and set in the pan. Ice with ketchup or tomato paste. Add about 1 cup of water to the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours. Serve with ketchup, sauerkraut or ginger carrots.

There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.

I love the ‘idea’ of macaroons and they always look so good with their pure sugary whiteness and dense but moist insides and wonderful coconuttiness. But for some reason, they never satisfied any of my cravings. I figured out that it’s because the proportion of sugar is much higher than fat than any other cookie, since the only fat in macaroons is from the coconut. Now, I love the taste of coconut and love coconut oil, but for some reason there has never been enough fat in the macaroon to satisfy my cookie cravings… UNTIL NOW…

I set out today to make the perfect macaroon cookie. We will call this cookie a ‘Kimaroon’ for lack of a better term. Somebody please tell that ‘Mac’ guy that I took his cookie, ‘k?

Anyway my goal was to get butter and egg yolks in my kimaroons without losing too much height of the beaten egg whites. These don’t look like traditional macaroons, they look more like oatmeal cookies, as you can see. But they have NO flour (so are gluten free), they are crisp and tasty on the outside, and fluffy and chewy inside. They are not too dense, and they have the pleasing taste of the coconut. Plus they are easy to make, even considering the beating of the egg whites!

Not only did my family like these cookies, they loved them!

I started with Sally Fallon’s macaroon Nourishing Traditions recipe, and then added only two ingredients: butter and egg yolk. The only other change I made was the sweetener, I used granular Rapadura instead of maple syrup. The reason for this is that the granular sweetener binds with the egg whites and helps them stand up better. The Kimaroons need all of the help they can get because the fat ingredients could take the air right out of the egg white and sugar mixture.

I hope you try these, and if you do please let us know how it goes!

Kim’s Macaroons (Kimaroons)

Rating: 4 forks (key)

Ingredients:

4 egg whites (room temperature) – plus a pinch of sea salt
2 egg yolks (room temperature)
1/2 cup granulated Rapadura sugar, divided (palm, maple or coconut sugar would also work as long as it’s granular)
2 Tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup butter, very soft but not runny
2 cups unsweetened dried grated coconut (in between powdered and shredded)

Preparation:

In a spotlessly clean bowl, whip up the egg whites with a pinch of sea salt until they have stiff peaks. Gradually add the granulated Rapadura sugar while still mixing. Then add the salt, vanilla and arrowroot powder and mix in.

In a separate bowl, cream the last 1/4 of sugar and butter and then mix in egg yolks until incorporated. Add the grated coconut and mix so that all of the coconut is covered with the butter egg yolk mixture.

Working in small batches, fold the coconut mixture into the egg whites. This will NOT be a smooth mixture, it will be lumpy from the coconut mixture, but this is ok. Chill the batter in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

After chilling, the batter will still be soft so be gentle with it. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto a silpat liner on a cookie sheet (or parchment paper). Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Don’t remove from the pan when done cooking until the cookies are completely cooled, since they will be delicate and soft after baking.

These cookies can be eaten after they cool, but to have them remain crispy you can dry them in a 200 degree oven for one hour. Cool and then store in an airtight container.

Sally Fallon’s Macaroons Recipe

Difficulty:

Easy

Page in NT: 532

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
pinch of sea salt
2 Tablespoons arrowroot
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups commercial dried unsweetened coconut meat, finely cut

Preparation:

Line a baking sheet with buttered parchment paper, or use a silpat liner. Beat egg whites with salt in a clean bowl until they form stiff peaks. Beat in the arrowroot and slowly beat in syrup and vanilla. Fold in coconut. Drop by spoonfuls on parchment paper. Bake at 300 degrees for about 1/2 hour or until lightly browned. Reduce oven to 200 degrees and bake another hour or so until macaroons are completely dry and crisp. Let cool completely before removing from parchment paper. Store in an airtight container.

This is part of Food Renegade’s Fight Back for May 21, 2010

There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.

Does this sound like you?

• you know enough about real food cooking to be ‘dangerous’… to the ingredients that you use.
• wish you could learn more but it takes so much time to develop new cooking skills by trial and error. I mean, a compost pile can only take so many recipe failures!
• would like to try kombucha, soaking grains, fermented veggies, or kefir but don’t know how to get started, and are afraid your family will reject the new foods that you prepare
• need to do all of this on a budget… I mean we’re not made of money!

Personally, I really need to work on the ‘budget’ portion of real food. I go through ingredients like they’re growing on trees (even when they’re not). And it’s not just because of this blog… I tend to go through ‘trial and error cooking’ that can be expensive. I really need someone to coach me so I can increase my success and reduce my grocery bill, but still buy good food.

If the above describes your way of cooking (like me)…you may want to look into Jenny McGruther’s new ‘Real Food on a budget’ eCourse. She is very experienced and has some great ideas about cooking on a budget. Jenny was recently featured on CNN Health due to her 28 day Real Food Challenge.

I am going to take this course as well, because of the issues that I talk about above, and I’d really like to see all the wonderful recipes behind the Nourished Kitchen blog! I’m especially looking forward to an alternative for ranch dressing that my family will like (lesson 4), and gluten free bread baking (lesson 3).

Also in lesson 5, we will learn to cook savory, local vegetables. I am especially looking forward to this chapter due to the summer vegetable season. What a great time to take this course, when we have so many options available to us! And we’ll also learn how to preserve the harvest.

Please join me in taking this course…

The weather is starting to get warmer, but for some reason I’m still wanting stew. I will make a small stew and then eat for lunches, but never dinner now, which I seem to need lighter fare lately. I used some lamb shoulder steak for this Nourishing Traditions recipe and it was delicious! Love it with a dollop of sour cream and some pickled beets or sauerkraut. I’ve also been known to add some of the pickled beets liquid to the stew once it’s in the bowl, yum!

Tips for making Lamb Stew

• Add any root vegetables that you like, and feel free to increase the amounts.
• I didn’t marinate my lamb overnight in wine, and it turned out fine, although I’m sure it would have been even better marinated.
• If you don’t have a leg of lamb, just use any lamb cut that you have on hand. I used bone-in shoulder steaks and just took the bones out at the end of cooking.
• If you don’t have red wine, you can use a tablespoon or two of balsalmic vinegar or apple cider vinegar (use less ACV than you would balsalmic since it’s more acidic).
• Using arrowroot to thicken this stew makes it gluten free!

Lamb Stew

Rating: 1 fork (key) No one else will eat lamb – too bad, it’s yummy if mild.

Difficulty:

Easy

Page in NT: 347

Ingredients:

1 leg of lamb (or other cut), cut into 2 inch pieces
1 cup red wine
3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3-4 cups beef or lamb stock (TNC: or even turkey works ok)
several sprigs fresh thyme, tied together
1/2 teaspoon green peppercorns, crushed
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
several small pieces orange peel
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 Tablespoons arrowroot mixed with 2 T water
sea salt and pepper
1 pound turnips, scrubbed and quartered lengthwise
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into sticks
1 pound small boiling onions, peeled and sauteed in butter
1/2 pound sugar snap peas, ends removed

Preparation:

Marinate lamb in wine for several hours or overnight. Remove from wine (reserve the marinade) and dry off with paper towels (this is very important. If the meat is too damp it will not brown). In a heavy, flameproof casserole, brown the meat in batches in butter and olive oil, removing to a plate. Pour our browning oil and add stock, wine used in the marinade and tomato paste. Bring to a boil and skim. Add peppercorns, cloves, orange peel and garlic. Return meat to casserole along with the lamb bone, if you have it, cover and bake at 300 degrees for several hours or until meat is tender.

One half hour before serving, add turnips and carrots to the casserole. Just before serving add arrowroot mixture, spoonful by spoonful, until desired thickness of sauce is obtained. Remove bone and thyme. Season to taste, add sauteed onions. Steam peas in a vegetable steamer for about 1 minute and add to stew.

There are affiliate links in this post. I only include these links for products and services that I use myself and work hard to research and try out everything before publishing to my readers. If you have any comments about the links in any post please bring them to my attention at kim@theNourishingCook.com.

This is another one of our Friday night dinners, my whole family LOVES this dish! This is the classic bacon and eggs pasta traditionally made with pancetta but I find we like it fine with regular bacon. This brown rice pasta and the pork bacon is not exactly Nourishing Traditions approved because brown rice pasta isn’t soaked, but you could also use homemade sprouted wheat pasta for this dish. You could also substitute any kind of sausage that has enough fat in it to render out to add to a sauce. I have even heard of people making this pasta with grass-fed beef hamburger.

Tips for making ‘Bacon and Eggs’ Pasta

• The goal of this dish is to not scramble the egg yolk when adding it to the pasta. But if that does happen, it will still be really tasty (I’ve hurried through and accidentally scrambled the eggs and no one even commented).
• I always use more garlic than I think I should, and it turns out fine. If you don’t use enough it can end up being too bland.
• Perfect for a Friday or Saturday night dinner, since this dish doesn’t use up a whole package of bacon, and there is some for the morning!

Spaghetti Carbonara

Rating: 4 forks (key)

Difficulty:

Moderate

Ingredients:

1 pound brown rice spaghetti
1/2 pound natural bacon from pastured pork (or pancetta – italian bacon) – cut into bite sized pieces
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed in hot water and drained but not ‘cooked’
1 whole egg + 4 egg yolks (pastured eggs preferable)
sea salt and pepper to taste
grated parmesan cheese for topping

Preparation:

Prepare the brown rice spaghetti per package directions and reserve 2 cups of the pasta liquid prior to draining the pasta. While pasta is cooking, fry the bacon pieces in a large cast iron skillet, rendering most of the fat out of the bacon. When bacon is nearly crisp, add minced garlic and fry for one minute. Add the drained thawed peas and scrape up any browned bits on the pan, reducing the heat to medium. You will have kind of a thin sauce at this point with the oil from the bacon and the clinging water from the peas. Add the drained pasta and stir to cover the pasta with the bacon grease. Take the skillet off of the burner at this point while you prepare the egg sauce.

Mix the whole egg and egg yolks together in a separate cup. Add a few tablespoons of the hot pasta cooking water and mix into the eggs to temper them. Mix in a few tablespoons at a time until the egg mixture is room temperature or warm. If needed, add more pasta water to assist in the sauce covering the pasta.

While the pasta is off of the burner, pour the egg mixture over the pasta and immediately try to coat all of the pasta strands with egg yolk. Your goal is to cover all of the pasta without scrambling the egg. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Top with parmesan cheese and serve. Serves 6.

Photo courtesy of Oakmonster(TM) on Flickr