February 29, 2008 by brianglass
Every few weeks I make what we call Dad’s Stuff and Junk for Saturday breakfast. It varies from week to week depending on what I have on hand, but usually goes something like this.
Dice potatoes into half-inch cubes. Saute rosemary and garlic in butter, lard, or olive oil or a combination of those for a couple minutes and then add the potatoes with salt and pepper. Close the lid for 10 minutes and then take it off and turn the potatoes. Leave the lid off and fry for another 10 minutes.
In another pan, saute onions in butter until soft. Add ham, bacon, or sausage and cook until done. Whisk some eggs together with some cream, salt, pepper, and just a bit of chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. Dump the eggs in with the meat and cook until done. Add some chopped tomatoes.
Combine everything and mix it up. Add some grated cheese if desired.
UPDATE (6/28/08): Here are some recent improvements in this dish. I use stainless steel pans for all but the eggs.
For the potatoes, set the pan on medium-low (about 2.5-3 on a scale of 1-10). I generally use a combination of butter and olive oil. Make sure it is preheated before adding the potatoes. Cook with the lid closed for 8 minutes and with it off for 8-10 minutes depending on how crispy you want the potatoes.
For sausage, saute on all sides on medium-low until browned and there is fond (the brown stuff) stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add butter and onions and season with salt and pepper. The liquid that comes out of the onions will help to deglaze the pan. If there is still fond stuck to the bottom toward the end of cooking, deglaze with a little water or just a tiny splash of dry red wine or stock.
Cook the eggs separately in a non-stick pan with some butter. Add some of the chilpotle to both the eggs and the onion/meat mixture.
I use whatever fresh herbs I have on hand. Generally that’s rosemary and thyme. Sometimes I use oregano. Chives and/or parsley makes a good garnish.
Posted in breakfasts, cooking | 3 Comments »
February 23, 2008 by brianglass
If you want your kids to eat your cooking, sometimes you have to make the food fun. For breakfast this morning we had fried leftover mashed potatoes, turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, orange quarters, and Gouda from Holland.
Posted in breakfasts, family | No Comments »
February 10, 2008 by brianglass
I was faced with a meal I hadn’t planned for. I almost caved and just took the kids out to a restaurant, but we had just been out the previous day. I decided to go home and see what I could invent from what I had on hand. Here it is. Micah liked it and Hannah wouldn’t touch it (which is normal for pretty much anything). I didn’t measure anything so I’ll just describe.
I had some leftover cooked macaroni noodles (brown rice noodles) in the freezer. I defrosted them. I made up a white sauce with butter, flour, milk, and small amount of cheddar and gruyere cheese. Before adding the flour to the butter I sauted a small minced garlic clove in it. I made this sauce thinner than my macaroni and cheese sauce. It was more like a light cream sauce. I added a little salt, pepper, and paprika.
I took a small can of salmon (half the size of the 15oz ones) and used a fork to break off small pieces of salmon into the sauce. I dumped the defrosted macaroni into the sauce, and that’s it. I quite liked it.
Some nice additions to this dish might be asparagus and/or shrimp.
Posted in cooking, lunch, recipes | 1 Comment »
February 6, 2008 by brianglass
I’m not Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, or Orthodox. I have never observed Lent in my life and had to look it up to find out what it was. In my quest to understand traditional Christianity better, I have decided to observe Lent this year.
According to Wikipedia:
Converts to Christianity followed a strict catechumenate or period of instruction and discipline. In Jerusalem near the close of the fourth century, classes were held throughout Lent for three hours each day. With the legalization of Christianity (by the Edict of Milan) and its later imposition as the state religion of the Roman Empire, its character was endangered by the great influx of new members. In response, the Lenten fast and practices of self-renunciation were required annually of all Christians. The less zealous of the converts were thus brought more securely into the Christian fold.
This seems to have been a very wise thing to do - especially in an evangelical church in which there is a constant influx of new members. In fact, it seems like a great idea even today. One role of tradition is to bring stability. Another is to pass wisdom from one generation to the next. The practice of Lent if followed as described would serve to do those things.
Traditionally Lent is a period when you give up something. One of the vices I most enjoy is a glass of wine or a beer in the evening. I’m giving this up for Lent. I’ll also try to make a point of doing some study and prayer every day.
I also observed fat Tuesday by eating a couple Paczki. (sheepish grin…)
Posted in faith, tradition | 4 Comments »
February 6, 2008 by brianglass
We just got back from vacation and didn’t have much in the house to eat. I made do with what I had and here is the result. I found it quite tasty. It has a unique combination of flavors that I liked but Shari did not. She didn’t seem to like the sweetness that the squash and onion added. I liked the way the sweetness of the squash combined with the acidity of the tomatoes. The beans, bacon, and stock served to add a solid flavor base to the sweet and sour overtones.
- 2 cups dry black turtle beans
- 6 strips bacon
- 1/2 sweet onion, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 1 small sweet dumpling squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped
- 1 28oz can chopped tomatoes
- 1/4 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, seeded and minced (optional)
- 1 tsp coriander
- 1 bay leaf
- grated nutmeg
- salt
- pepper
Soak beans for 12-24hrs in slightly acidic water (e.g. add vinegar, whey, or lemon juice). Rinse beans thoroughly, add water until just covered and cook 3-4 hours until soft, adding water as needed to keep beans covered.
Peel and chop squash into beans.
Cook bacon. Chop bacon into beans.
Saute onion and celery in bacon drippings until soft. Deglaze the pan with the chicken stock. Add to beans.
Add the remaining ingredients and cook gently with the lid off for 40-60 minutes until the squash is fork tender.
Garnish with sour cream, crème fraîche, or yogurt.
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January 18, 2008 by brianglass
I love the candied pecans and almonds you get in the malls around Christmas time. This year I decided I needed to try making my own. This is what I came up with.
- 12oz pecans halves
- 1/2-2/3 cup grade B organic maple syrup
- 1 tsp Chinese 5-spice
- small pinch of salt
The pecans do not have to be brine soaked before roasting as Nourishing Traditions recommends, but they do taste better (a very buttery flavor) and are more easily digested.
Simmer all ingredients together on medium until all the liquid is gone. You will have to turn down the temperature later in the cooking to prevent burning. The syrup should start to crystalize. If it doesn’t add a little more syrup and continue cooking. Lay out on parchment to cool and dry.
These don’t last long. They also put on the pounds…
Posted in recipes, sweets | 7 Comments »
January 12, 2008 by brianglass
Every so often I get an email asking me where and in what quantities I buy my grain.
I buy 50lb bags of both soft white wheat and hard white or red wheat. In general I get these from Eden Organic Foods in Clinton Michigan. I buy them there because I drive by the company headquarters on my way to work and back each day. I notice that they also have quinoa and popcorn (and pearled barley). I recently discovered that you can get Eden products cheaper. Zonya Foco has a 15% off coupon code for Eden on her website. (I discovered this because Zonya attends my church.)
Once per year, my family and I make a trek to Battle Creek Michigan for a biking/camping trip at Fort Custer State Recreation Area. While there, I generally pick up an order of bulk grains and other things from Something Better Natural Foods. They have unbelievable prices and a large selection. Last summer I got a large quantity of hard and soft wheats, barley, oats, and corn. I also picked up some spelt and kamut. I must say the kamut is my absolute favorite grain. I wish I had bought more.
I buy lesser used grains (e.g. quinoa, rice) in packages at my grocery store.
Because of the volume I purchase, it is impractical to have these things shipped. Most places will ship, but the costs are prohibitive. It is important to try and find something local if at all possible to keep costs down. Unbelievable prices aren’t so unbelievable after you add shipping.
I go through about 100lbs of soft wheat and 100lbs of hard wheat per year. I make bread once per week from the hard wheat and make quick-breads (e.g. biscuits, scones, muffins) throughout the week with the soft wheat. I make pancakes and waffles with oats and barley. I occasionally make hot cereal with whatever grains I have on hand.
UPDATE (2/29/2008): I recently went to the Eden site to order some grain, and discovered that their prices have nearly doubled. I will be looking elsewhere.
Posted in kitchen logistics, milling | 5 Comments »
January 7, 2008 by brianglass
I typically spend an average of $180/wk on groceries. That’s a lot for an average American family. While quality food simply costs more, I think I can make some improvements.
Lowering Your Grocery Budget has some excellent pointers for reducing costs. For starters I plan to wean myself off coffee/tea and reduce alcohol purchases to once per month. I think we’ll start eating more beans as well. I’ll be sticking to the least expensive produce such as onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, winter squash, and apples. I’ll have to reduce my use of fresh herbs as well (ouch!).
Posted in kitchen logistics | 6 Comments »
January 4, 2008 by brianglass
Well, as you may have noticed, I took a bit of a break from blogging over the Christmas holiday. I’m back.
Christmas is a time when I cheat a fair amount. Yes, I still did make some healthy foods, but also ate a fair amount of rather unhealthy deserts and visited several restaurants. Now it’s back to a healthy diet.
Some resolutions of mine for this coming year:
- drink less coffee and tea
- drink less alcohol
- lose 10lbs (yes, you can gain weight eating healthy foods)
- bench press 150lbs for 6 reps (I’m at 130lbs right now)
- thoroughly study traditional Christianity (e.g. Orthodoxy and Catholicism)
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
December 6, 2007 by brianglass
While this is a blog mostly about food, it is also a blog about tradition. While traditional foods and preparation methods are important to me, traditions unrelated to food are also very important to me.
Weston A. Price’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration first demonstrated to me that many traditional diets (though not necessarily all) promote extreme health. Modern trends in heart disease, obesity, cancer, and other diseases demonstrated to me that the modern American diet has serious flaws. Though not the first sign to me that wanton disregard for tradition can create problems, it was one of the most important.
I recently read “The Lessons of History” by Will Durant (which I highly recommend). Will Durant spent the majority of his life studying history and wrote a multi-volume set of history books that are approachable by armchair historians like myself. “The Lessons of History” is a unique book in that Mr. Durant condenses the lessons he learned from history into a single, concise volume. One of the overarching themes of this book is that civilizations come and go and they follow a predictable cycle from rise through collapse.
For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on the character of a “conflict between science and religion” Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to escape from ecclesiastical control and become secular, perhaps profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology and — after some hesitation — the moral code allied with it; literature and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike, to conscious poverty and to weary wealth. In the end, a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death.
The problem is that at the hight of a civilization, the “intellectuals” feel wise enough to judge and discard the traditions that formed their very civilization. As Will himself once observed, “What is wisdom? I feel like a droplet of spray which proudly poised for a moment on the crest of a wave, undertakes to analyze the sea.”
Posted in foodosophy, tradition | 2 Comments »
November 26, 2007 by brianglass
These make a great Saturday morning breakfast. It has taken me about 5-6 tries to get all the kinks ironed out of these, but I’m pretty happy with this recipe now.
- 1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry grain (or about 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour)
- 6 tablespoons rapadura or sucanat
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 2/3-3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- rapadura or sucanat and cinnamon to sprinkle
Blend butter into flour and rapadura with a pastry blender or food processor until the butter is in pea size or slightly smaller chunks. Gently mix in the buttermilk until all the flour is wet. Let soak at room temperature overnight.
In the morning, put the dough in the freezer for about 20-30 minutes to harden the butter. Preheat the oven to 425F.
- 6-10 baking apples, peeled and sliced (sorry, didn’t count)
- 1/3 cup rapadura or sucanat
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- pinch of salt
- 3 tablespoons butter
Saute the apples in butter until tender. Stir in the rapadura, spices and salt and cook for a few more minutes.
Roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Evenly sprinkle on the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Roll up the dough. Flatten and fold the dough gently about 5 times. Roll out into a square until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. Slice the dough into 6 rectangles. Spoon apple filling onto rectangles (probably a couple tablespoons), fold over, and pinch the edges together.
Wisk the egg and brush it over the pies with a pastry brush. Sprinkle rapadura or sucanat and cinnamon over the pies.
Bake for 12-15 minutes.
Yum.
Posted in baking, breakfasts | No Comments »
November 25, 2007 by brianglass
The Thanksgiving leftovers were devoured by my visiting family. I had not planned meals for most of this week depending on the fact that we generally have enough leftovers to last us for a week. What to do? I remembered that Shari likes a white bean chicken chili she’s had at Ruby Tuesday’s and a local coffee shop. The only leftovers we had were turkey. I had a small bag of cannellini beans in the pantry. This is what I came up with.
- 3 cups dry cannellini beans
- 1 cup chicken or turkey stock
- 1-2 cups leftover cooked chicken or turkey, diced
- 1 onion, minced
- 1 stalk celery, minced
- 2 tablespoons butter or lard (or bacon drippings of you have them)
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, seeded and minced
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon coriander
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste (I used about 12 twists if the grinder)
Pour simmering water over beans and soak overnight (12-24 hours). Add a strip of kombu seaweed for improved digestibility. Rinse thoroughly and cover with just enough water. Bring to a boil and skim. Add about 1 tablespoon of salt and cover. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook until tender, 2-4 hours. Add additional water as needed to keep the beans covered. Sauté onion, celery, and garlic in butter or lard until tender. Add vegetables and lard to the beans. Stir in remaining ingredients and cook covered for 1-2 hours. Leave off the lid if you want a thicker chili. Serve with crème fraîche or sour cream.
Posted in cooking, recipes | 3 Comments »
November 13, 2007 by brianglass
Some people tell me I’m too extreme and should use moderation.
Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation. — William Lloyd Garrison
Posted in cooking | 3 Comments »
November 6, 2007 by brianglass
Sometimes people ask me what benefits I get from my “extreme” lifestyle. Here is some evidence that this lifestyle really works.
All my life I have been very susceptible to any contagious disease that gets near me. If the guy in the cubicle next to me gets a cold, so do I. If my kids get a cold, so do I. Not only do I get a cold, I get a long drawn-out miserable cold that potentially progresses to bronchitis. Sometimes these colds would last a month. Over the last 1.5 years as I have been improving my lifestyle, my immunity has gotten stronger. I won’t lie. I still get colds just as often as I used to, but they are a shadow of what they once were. Instead of a 2-3 week really stuffy and miserable cold, I now have colds that last 1-2 days and are relatively mild.
I used to have significant digestive problems. I regularly had heartburn and would probably have been considered constipated. Now I only get heartburn if I eat poorly for multiple consecutive days. Bowel movements are regular and easy.
I lift weights twice per week. I have been able to put on more muscle weight than ever before. In the past I would work extremely hard with little or no gains.
So what exactly do I do to achieve this?
- choose organic foods whenever it is economical
- eat only pasture raised beef, chicken, and pork, and occasional wild-caught fish
- eat pasture raised eggs
- eat only healthy traditional fats like butter, lard, coconut oil, and olive oil
- eat whole grains only, fermented or sprouted
- eat legumes soaked for 12-24 hours, rinsed, and cooked for 2-4 hrs.
- drink at least one glass of whole raw pasture raised milk daily
- eat whole raw cheese
- eat plenty of fruits and vegetables (mostly cooked vegetables)
- eat occasional roasted or brine soaked nuts
- use only whole sweeteners like maple syrup, sucanat, or raw unfiltered honey
- swallow 1 teaspoon of cod liver oil daily
- regularly make rich soup stock from chicken bones
- occasionally eat lacto-fermented foods (e.g. yogurt, brine pickles, home-brewed ginger beer)
- use unrefined mineral-rich celtic sea salt
- don’t eat processed foods (e.g. white sugar, white flour, corn syrup, MSG, splenda, fruit juice, etc.)
- cheat occasionally
- take echinacea tea when I feel a cold coming on or when people around me have colds
- do a high intensity weight lifting workout twice per week
- do taijiquan for 20 minutes each morning
- have a 20-minute massage twice monthly
Goals I have for continued improvement:
- add liver and increase sea-food intake
- increase intake of lacto-fermented foods
- eliminate tea and coffee
- reduce calorie intake to lose 5-10 pounds of fat
- be able to bench press 150lbs for 8 reps (I have 40lbs to go) (UPDATE: this is with dumbells. I tried benching with barbells last night and was able to do 130lbs at 6 reps. This is the strongest I have ever been)
Posted in healing | 8 Comments »
November 5, 2007 by brianglass
This is a quick and easy thing to do with leftover chicken or turkey.
- 1 cup brown rice (I use short grain brown)
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tsp salt
In a covered saucepan, simmer the rice in the chicken stock with salt until all the water has been absorbed.
- 2T butter or coconut oil
- 2T unbleached flour
- about 2/3c coconut milk (I eyeballed it)
- about 2/3c chicken or turkey stock (I eyeballed it)
- salt
- pepper
- leftover chicken or turkey, chopped
In a sauce pan, melt butter. Add flour and wisk until combined. Let simmer for about 1 minute. Wisk in stock and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer until thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Stir into rice and add chicken or turkey. Season to taste. A nice addition might be some cyan other spice, but for kids, simple is best.
Posted in cooking, recipes | No Comments »
Every few weeks I make what we call Dad’s Stuff and Junk for Saturday breakfast. It varies from week to week depending on what I have on hand, but usually goes something like this.
