AYWS= A year with Sally (Fallon), author of Nourishing Traditions.

The other day, Caleb my 3 year old, was sitting in the living room, humming to himself and drawing.  He stopped suddenly, looked at me with a very concerned look and asked

“Mama.  DO you know the Muffin Man?  And does he live in Oregon?’

I didn’t really know how to respond while suppressing major giggles.  Where do kids come up with stuff like this?

Caleb loves muffins.  I love muffins.  Kai seems to love anything that slightly resembles food, so he loves muffins too.  The hubster will eat a muffin…. on occasion.  My issue with normal muffins is they usually give me that bloated, I just ate a rock, feeling.  But I still love them so much.  So I was excited to give these another chance to redeem themselves.

‘Another chance?’, you ask.

Yes, I’ve made these before out of the NT cookbook and they tasted like pasty play dough with blueberries in them.  Yuck.  I couldn’t even get one down while it was still hot out of the oven.

But this time….. THESE muffins, are GRRRRREAT!

I think the trick lies in how long you soak them.  I soaked them for almost 24 hours, where as the last time I made them, I only soaked them for maybe 10 hours.  I also covered them with a glass lid while soaking, instead of just a tea towel.

Why soak?  And what does Soak mean?  Welll…. I don’t want this whole post to be about that, so I’ll sum it up by sayin it makes flour based recipes more digestible.  Ever wonder why so many people are gluten intolerant these days?  I would say the majority of the problem is how food is processed, namely flour.

What does ‘soaking’ mean?

In most cases it means adding filtered water and an acid medium to neutralize the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors in grains, legumes and nuts.  For an acid medium I generally use kefir or whey (derived directly from raw milk).  You can also use natural unflavored yogurt, lemon juice, salt and in some cases baking soda.  Be sure you use the correct acid medium for each recipe.

For these muffins I used 2 cups of my raw milk Kefir.  Be sure to mix the flour well.  I made a few other alterations to the recipe.

1) After soaking,  I also added a bit of rapadura as well as the 1/4 cup suggested maple syrup.

2)Allowing the dough to sit for about 10 minutes after mixing the ingredients together seemed to let the dough rest and the baking soda to activate a bit, resulting in slightly ‘raised’ dough before placing it in the muffin tin.  (How I wish I had a stoneware muffin pan!!)

As suggested in NT (Nourishing Traditions) I placed, or rather my sous chef, placed the blueberries on top of each muffin before cooking so they wouldn’t sink to the bottom while cooking.

He is so proud of his kitchen skills!

The recipe instructs you to bake at 325 for about an hour, I think ours were in there for maybe 40 minutes before I decided they were getting a bit too browned on top.  I think they would have been PERFECT had I pulled them out about 5 minutes earlier.

However, with a small pat of butter (Yes, everything is better with butter) these muffins were AWESOME, better than any standard muffin I think I’ve ever made.  I will be making these, in some form perhaps weekly!

I’ve eaten about 3 of these muffins today, and I’m happy to say that my stomach feels great.  No bloated gassy feeling.  I will never make muffins the standard way again!

Before Caleb was born, I was an avid cereal eater.  I like the flaky kind with blueberries and oat clusters.  If it was cold out I would microwave some oatmeal out of the packet.   Sometimes on saturday I would get fancy and scramble some eggs with cheddar and serve it with bacon and honey wheat toast.

I’ve never been able to skip breakfast like so many americans (cough *my hubster*), I crash if I havent eaten something within an hour of waking.  Imagine how I was during pregnancy!!!  Really, I needed something before I woke up, like an IV of oatmeal…

I don’t know about you, but I would be starving like an hour after having a bowl of cardbord fiber cereal and skim milk.

Nourishing Traditions was like a revelation to my breakfast.  A few things to think about when serving up your first meal of the day…

1) Cereal is void of nutrition.  There.  I said it.  It’s highly processed, full of preservatives and hard to digest.   Even the ‘vitamin packed’ 100% of your daily fiber blah blah cereal.  When vitamins and minerals have to be added to your cereal to make it ‘nutritious’ you can bet that your body wont be able to assimilate them since they’re in a form that your body cant recognize.

2) skim milk is…. oh man..  I could write a whole post on milk.  Please do some research on the matter.  Go with whole raw milk from a local reputable source, as it contains all the valuable enzymes, GOOD bacteria and the HEALTHY fats that help with mineral and vitamin absorbtion.  Almost always someone who is typically lactose intolerant will be tolerant of RAW milk.  Myself, hubster and Caleb included!

3) Breakfast should be easily digestible.  Starting your day off with a starchy bagel and processed cream cheese and 16 oz latte is a sure way to start things off horribly.  Your gut is bound to get… uh BOUND up.  Things that are easy to eat, are usually more easy to digest.  I’ll get to the suggestions in a minute.

4) Skipping breakfast is not an option!  You’ve already gone 8 hours without food, waiting until 11 means you haven’t probably eaten anything of substance for at least 12 hours or more!  Your system will go into starvation mode, slowing your metabolism.  So by NOT eating,  you’re most likely NOT loosing weight, but gaining it as your body will hold on to the calories you DO feed your body to prepare for the next 12+ hour fast.

Now for some suggestions.  To begin with, the options I’m about to give you ARE cost effective more so than cereal or a bagel.. cereal is expensive.  Especially the ‘healthy’ kind.  The more basic and raw your ingredients, it’s going to be better on your budget, better for your digestion and for your general well being.  Go for the best quality you can possibly afford.

We live on a veeeerrrrryyyyy limited budget for our area.  We spend almost 1/5 of our income on food.  We view it as a part of our health care, part of our entertainment budget and the source of alot of very valuable past times as a family.

So a few of our favorite Sally breakfasts include

Breakfast A) Soaked Oatmeal with Real maple syrup, butter and raw cream.

Here’s how we like it.

Soak Steel cut oats (or quinoa) in filtered water with a tsp of  kefir, yogurt, or apple cider vinegar to help break down the phytates and enzyme inhibitors of the grain over night. (more on why to soak grains in another post)

Add more filtered water and cook oatmeal with raisins or dates, cinnamon, cardamom,  a pinch of salt, chopped apples and walnuts.

serve over a small pat of butter, top with a small amount of real maple syrup and raw cream.

I can promise you this wont be like any oatmeal you’ve ever had!  Yes it’s high fat and chock full of calories.  But guess what, 1 cup of this holds me over for hours, my digestion is on track for the day and it sure beats the heck out of 2 bowls of bland over priced boxed cereal!

Breakfast B) Favorite Kefir Shake

We make our own Kefir with Raw milk from a local farm.  The raw milk itself is a bit spendy, but for the amount that grocery store chains charge for organic kefir, I’m actually saving quite a bit.  For the raw egg (yep, RAW) I use one from my chickens.  I don’t know if I’d feel quite as safe using a regular 99 cent a dozen, grocery store egg for this though.  At least get the organic free range eggs if you want to use them raw.  Then give them a luke warm bath with some apple cider vinegar as the shells are porous and will soak in a bit of the vinegar or fresh squeezed lemon and help ‘kill’ any bad bacteria.  I don’t do this step with our eggs, as I literally walk outside, pick up an egg and crack it into my smoothie.

A Kefir shake is my FAVORITE way to start my day.  It’s packed with easily digestable fats and fruits, good protein and lots of excellent bacteria and probiotics.  My gut says thank you.

Here’s how we make them at home.

1 banana

handful of organic frozen blueberries, mango, strawberries, or any combination of fruits

1 cup of raw milk kefir

1 raw egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 TBS raw honey

Blend and drink while it’s cold!  This is also a great post workout meal, wonderful for people trying to cut back on calories or people with IBS

Breakfast C) Sunnyside up with veggies

I wrote a post awhile back about the benefits of over easy eggs as opposed to scrambled or overdone eggs.  Click here to read.  Instead of pairing your eggs with a couple pieces of toast, saute some fresh veggies and put your egg over top letting the yoke drip over them.  It’s delicious and an excellent way to get another serving of veggies in your day.

‘But what about chopping up all those veggies?’, You ask.  When I get my weekly produce bin, I take out about 1/2 of the vegetables and dice them, mix them and put them in a glass bowl.  This way I have a ready made mix of vegetables to throw into any of my meals!

This is how we prepare this meal.

2 farm fresh (or backyard fresh!) eggs

1 tsp coconut oil

handful of veggies

salt and pepper

optional goat cheese or parm to top

Saute veggies in pan with coconut oil until vibrant and slightly soft.  push to the side or remove and place on plate.  Crack egg and cook with a tsp of water and cover with lid until egg white is cooked through but yolk is still very runny.  Top veggies with egg and sprinkling of goatcheese, herbs, salt and pepper.

Yum.

Each of these meals costs me on average, $1-2.00 when you figure out the price per serving.  Not bad!  I can feed my family a ridiculously nourishing and delicious breakfast for $4-$8!

I try not to use my blog as a place to vent, because…. we all have issues, and honestly, I don’t read other people’s blogs (especially people I don’t know) to read about their bad days.

That sounds totally heartless.

I mean, I have shed many a tear reading others blogs about a heart wrenching incident, trials and errors, and I don’t mind that.  I think it really has to do with how it’s worded.

It’s more the ‘my life sucks, everything went wrong today’ kind of stuff that I don’t particularly care to read.  Mostly because I have alot of hard stuff in my own life!  Again, it really depends on how it’s worded.  And now I feel the need to read through all of my posts and delete any ‘woe’s me’ posts.

So I will spare you the details of my week, but I will say it was one of the harder weeks of my life.

I said quite a few cuss words this week.

I said alot of prayers.

and I cried a few times.

I don’t cry much these days.  I think it’s because I don’t have the energy to cry.  I don’t really have time to cry.  I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Getting on with the point of my post… so

I get an email from a friend today asking me if I want to pick up a dinner at the local Community Supported Kitchen.  Whhhhats this? you ask?  I had no idea either.  But check this link out. Salt Fire and Time

This little kitchen is just miles from my house.  HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?!!!

It’s a kitchen that creates nutrient dense foods, mostly using the nourishing traditions and weston price literatures as it’s basis.   You can volunteer to cook there and sign up for weekly meals for pick up.

So tonight I feasted on Pork Stew.  Holy Bleepin’ delicious.  It was so filling and with each bite I felt my stresses melt away.  I enjoyed creamy herbed polenta and Nettle, Chamomile Kraut.   Oh and slow dried Beef jerky and to end the meal, Real Lemon Curd made the old fashioned way.

I cried.

I’m serious.  Real tears went down my cheek as I savored the meal.  This meal represented something to me.  It represented culture and tradition.  And nourishment.  It also represents community because many hands prepared this meal, from scratch.  Starting with the farmer who raised the pig in a healthy sustainable way with good organic feed and open pasture.  The farmer who planted the herbs and the chef who slow cooked the pork to this perfect consistency.  Someone made this kraut possibly months ago so that it could naturally ferment to break down the enzyme inhibitors and be full of natural and live probiotics.  It’s all just so beautiful!  And then there’s the friend who thought of me and offered to share this meal with us.

I feel stronger and satiated.  Full but not bloated.  I feel blissful.

This meal was a glimpse of what my food should taste like daily.  It should all taste like it took time and thought and careful preparation.  What you feed your body, you also feed your soul!

Tomorrow, we talk about a nourishing breakfast Sally-style.  Prepare to toss your cereal boxes.