Pickled Radishes - Lacto-fermented (Probiotic) & Paleo!

Perhaps you have a bushel full of radishes that you have plucked from the soil in your garden.  Or you may have gone a bit overboard just bought a bit too many radishes at the farmers market.  Either way, I have a suggestion for your consumption of said radishes:  Pickled Radishes!

[I do like very thinly sliced raw radishes on my salads and such, but most of the time raw radishes are a bit too "hot" for my palate.  So, of course, you can eat them raw, if that's your thing.  You can roast them up with other veggies in the oven.  You can also sauté them in some butter/ghee, salt and pepper.  Cooking them, in general, gives them a much more smooth, mild flavor.  Sautéed Radishes are one of my FAVORITE ways the eat a radish, second only to pickled.]

Pickles - Pickles - Pickles

You've probably had many different kinds of pickles in your life.  There's dill pickles, gherkins, bread and butter pickles.  I'm guessing you've probably also had other non-cucumber pickled items: sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled garlic, pickled watermelon rinds, hot Mexican-style pickled carrots, and many others.  Have you had pickled radishes before?

When radishes are pickled, the flavor becomes mild, smooth and almost buttery.  It still tastes like a pickle, but like no other pickle you've ever had.

Grass-fed grilled sirloin steak with pickled radishes, carrots, Romain and red-leaf lettuce, black olives, and 5 Cheese Garlic Spread from River Valley Kitchens

Pickling radishes (this recipe at least) uses Lacto-fermentation.  Feel free to check out the Wikipedia site for it here.  Basically,  you use water and salt.  No vinegar.  For Dill Pickles you would also add fresh dill, garlic, and pickling spices.  You can check out Sandor Katz's Book "Wild Fermentation" for a ton more info on all kinds of pickling.  (You can also google him, and there are a bunch of recipes on the web.)

Also, on a side note, pickled radishes are SO EASY!!!!  Oh my gosh.  You'll make them and literally be AMAZED at how low effort and quick these steps are.  Ready?

Start with a big bunch of radishes and a large mason jar with a regular 1 piece lid (not the kind that have a top and a seal, just one piece).  Wash and cut up your radishes into the size pieces you'd like your pickles to be in.  I like to do mine in bite size pieces.

Place your pickles in the bottom of your mason jar and cover with a thin layer of kosher salt.  I had about 3/4 of a quart jar full of radishes and used about 3 tablespoons of salt.  DO NOT ADD WATER YET!  Cover the top with cheese cloth and either tie a string around it or use a rubber band to make sure no bugs can get inside.

Wait 24 hours.  Take off the cheese cloth, and fill the entire jar to the tippy-ippy top.  If possible use filtered water, as chlorine may not allow your lacto-fermentation to do its thing correctly.  Place your metal lid on the top and screw it on, but not too tight.  Flip the jar upside down on your counter, on top of a rag or old towel.  SLOWLY and CAREFULLY open the lid until you see a little water come up around the edges of the jar.  This means that you have made a seal.

Don't touch this for a week.  Put a sign up if you need to, but just leave it alone and keep it out of direct sunlight.  After a week, BEFORE PICKING IT UP, screw the lid back on - then flip it right side up and take the lid off.  The odor may be quite foreign to you, but I'm telling you, these little bites of love will leave you craving more when they are all gone.

DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGERS OR USED UTENSILS IN THE JAR.  Don't do it.  There may be bacteria on those items and could ruin your pickles.  Use a CLEAN spoon and spoon your pickled radishes out into smaller mason jars (with their juice - if you need more liquid to have these jars full up to the top, add more filtered water) and then seal them up.  Stick them in the fridge and they should last up to (and maybe beyond) 6 months.  Enjoy!

Beginning to Lose it

It has been a little over 6 weeks, since I began eating primally.  So far, so good, I'd say.  Although the weight loss has slowed down, I'm still losing, which keeps me motivated.  Even on the days when I weigh myself and I realize I may have done more of a 60/40 than an 80/20 (primal/non-primal ratio), I still feel better than I have in a very long time.

It seems to be less of a struggle to go out to eat than I was expecting, which probably isn't the greatest thing ever: I should definitely be eating at home more.  The price tag of fresh veggies and meat is much more expensive on the "outside" and I've found very few places that serve grass-fed meat.  I have been bringing my lunch with me to work, which is not nearly as social as going out with a group to a local fast or slow food eatery, but I feel better by using the groceries I've bought for the week and not spending extra cash.

Some of my recent foodie loves:

• Grass-fed Mozzarella balls (about an inch in diameter - they come packaged in water) drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  I know this would be yummy with tomatoes and basil, but even by it self, it must be tasted to be believed!  
• Grass-fed skirt steak marinated and then grilled to perfection
• Lunch meat (Whole Foods roasted turkey, roast beef, or Applegate salami or ham) wrapped in a delicious, fresh piece of red leaf or romaine lettuce
• Coconut cream (take a can of real, full-fat coconut milk and put it in the fridge for an hour or so - we just have the A/C on in the house and that is enough - and then open the can and scoop out the soft, fluffy, coco-licious cream at the top) over frozen cherries
• Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, BACON! Yeah.
• Olives
• Mild Kim-chi
• Farmers Market fruit, for when I need something sweet
• Grass-fed, Beef summer sausage

Chorizo Buttered Veggies (with a bit of Chalula Hot Sauce)

Bacon Buttered Veggies
Last night I made myself a new amazing veggified bacon meal.  It's also amazing with chorizo and chalula hot sauce - don't skimp on the butter!  Here's the recipe (for 1 serving):

1 slice of raw bacon chopped up into medium sized pieces
1 big bunch of fresh veggies cleaned and roughly chopped (I used long purple beans (they called them purple asparagus's at the farmers market, but I think that's bologna), green beans, wax (yellow) beans, kale, and some crazy type of spinach where you can also eat the stems (it's purple and green))
Grass-fed butter (Kerry Gold, anyone?!) to taste (I probably used about 4 tablespoons)

Start with a cast iron pan on medium heat.  Once its toasty, throw in your bacon pieces and mix around until they are cooked through and a little crispy.  Then add about a tablespoon of butter (or two if you're in the mood) to the pan and let it melt.  As soon as it is melted, toss the veggies into the pan and toss to cover with bacon pieces and melted butter.  Add more butter if you feel like it.  Toss and wait a minute and a half and then toss again, on and on until your veggies are cooked to your liking.  I added some pepper and truffle salt.  It was yummy.  Check it out!

Nothing Sweeter than Simple Unsweetened Applesauce

I know it is NOT apple season.

I really do try - a recent aversion - to eat as much produce as possible, within the season, and locally if at all possible.  Apples are totally a fall fruit and the ones I get are shipped in from Washington state.  I'm sure they've been sitting in cold storage somewhere for quite a few months, and so, to me, they aren't the tastiest of the year - nothing close to the fresh ones.  But in these lingering chilly spring months, I really love homemade applesauce.  It is so ridiculously easy to make, that it's almost well... ridiculous.  I like to make it when I'm just sitting around the house on the weekend.

I usually use 5 or 6 green/red apples (by this I mean apples that are both green and red - Braeburn, Fiji, Gala, etc.).  I wash them, then core them and cut them up.  I find it easiest to just slice off the first side, then the next, etc. (see image).

Then you throw them in a pot, cover them with water, and throw in a pinch of salt.  Set them on the stove over medium-high heat until they start to boil, then turn them down to a simmer.    It usually takes about 1-2 hours of simmering for the apples to just fall apart into applesauce.  If you can squish an apple piece with the back of your spoon, they are ready to squish (you can just continue to squish with the back of your spoon or use a potato masher if you want) and add cinnamon to taste.  I like a lot of cinnamon flavor, so I add a bunch.

I like to let it cool with a lid on it and once it's cooled off, I put it in mason jars of different sizes so they are ready for bringing along to work for a snack or storing in the fridge.  They should be OK in the fridge for about a week and a half.

Enjoy!

Chipped Roasted Beets & Being a Flexitarian

A few weeks ago, I was with some friends and one asked, "How would you categorize your eating habits?"  I hadn't thought of it too much before that time.  I think I eat a pretty healthy diet.  I shop at whole foods.  I go to restaurants with my hubby.  I bring my lunch to work a couple days a week.  I eat a lot of vegetables, fruit, meat, cheese; you know, all the food groups.  I try to purchase mostly organic, low processed, or grass fed/pastured.  I love good food.

My other friend said she thinks of herself as a Flexitarian.  Huh?  What the heck is Flexitarian - you may be asking (I sure did).  Flexitarians have also been referred to as "less-meat-aterians," "part-time vegetarians," "semi-vegetarians," or even "meat-eating vegetarians."  I know this seems a bit crazy.  Perhaps some believe you either ARE or ARE NOT a vegetarian.  I mean, you can't be kind-of pregnant, right?

Wikipedia uses this definition for Semi-Vegetarian: "diets that are not vegetarian but include less meat than typical diets. The term has no precise or widely accepted definition, but it usually denotes the following of a mainly vegetarian diet whilst eating meat occasionally."  


I thought that could be something fun and healthy to try.  I then read "The Flexitarian Diet."  You don't have to give up your favorite meat cravings.  You don't have to drastically change what you currently eat (at least for my eating habits).  The author, Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietician, says all you have to do is change a little at a time.  Instead of having meat as a main ingredient in your dinner, make it a condiment.  Add more grains, beans and soy (organic only - non-organic soy is said to have one of the highest concentrations of pesticides) products in to your meals.  Eat a wider variety of fruits and vegetables.


I've been a Flexitarian for about 2 weeks now.  It really only takes a little more work than before.  My hubby LOVEs his meat meals, but when I cook a vegetarian meal for dinner he tries it, then if he's into it, he'll eat it and get seconds.  He's even been seen heating up the leftovers in the convection-toaster oven in the morning for breakfast!  Can you believe it?!


In these 2 weeks I've lost weight.  I feel healthier.  Sure I've still gone out to dinner with my hubby a few times, and I even had meat during some of those meals!  But the majority of the time, I'm thinkin' like a vegetarian.  I'm even searching out vegetarian options when I first look at a menu when we are out to eat.  I've been cooking quick meals for dinner.  I've made a big vegetarian feast.  Sure I've made a terribly bland mushroom barley soup along the way, but the next day I was able to reclaim the dish into a deliciously creamy gruyere-parm mushroom risotto!  I also splurged and bought a few new cookbooks so that it would be easier to plan, shop, prep and cook for my new eating habits.  I got The Flexitarian Table, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen.


Although I'm not specifically changing my "diet" to lose weight, it is having that affect.  I feel better. I look better.  It's all good.  I've never been able to find a "diet" that was easy to do, but not only is this easy, but it makes me feel great.  I'm not hungry.  I eat less food.  I don't crave sweets as much.  Seriously, you could try it for two weeks and see results.  


This morning I went to Whole Paychecks and bought a whole cart full of groceries.  When I got home I started in on a recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  Super easy, super yummy and totally satisfying.  They call them Beet Chips - page 267, but I call them Chipped Roasted Beets.  Their version has the beets more browned and crispy while my version had more of a wholesome roasted beet flavor.  If you like beets, you can't go wrong with this simple recipe.  

I used 3 medium red beets.  I set the oven to 400 degrees to preheat, then washed and peeled (I used vinyl gloves so I didn't get the red dye on my hands) the beets and used a Mandoline to slice the beets into thin rounds.  I threw the rounds in a bowl, tossed 'em with some kosher salt and olive oil, then spread them out on a cookie sheet in a single layer on top of parchment paper.  

 I stuck them in the oven for 10 minutes,  took them out, fliped them over, another 10 minutes and they are done!  Enjoy!