Monthly Archives: September 2012

Sep14

Cooking with Kids: Homemade Tomato Soup (GAPS/SCD)

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Last weekend the girls and I made tomato soup – some for supper and some for freezing.  I love cooking with my kids. It’s a great productive task for them (away from TV!), and it gives us the perfect chance to “visit” and just be together.  My littlest got her stool, my eldest found her station…and we all pitched in and worked…

Homemade Tomato Soup: 

Ingredients:

roughly 40 tomatoes, cored and quartered

2 quarts of homemade beef stock (see Sally Fallon’s recipes at the bottom of the link here)

1 bunch of mixed greens (I used kale and dandelion greens – you can find dandelion greens at Whole Foods, or grow them in your garden like I did!)

1-2 large onions, chopped

3-4 stalks celery, chopped (I use the greens and all)

4 leeks, chopped (if you’re not familiar with using leeks, just chop the white part up and wash out dirt well.  I suppose you can use the green parts but I didn’t here.)

8 carrots, peeled and chopped

5 cloves of garlic

1/4 c. fresh basil

sea salt and pepper to taste

coconut oil for sauteeing

Chop your veggies…

Even your small children can rip greens…

Saute your chopped veggies in the coconut oil (or olive oil)…

Add your broth…

Add tomatoes, greens and herbs, and seasonings…  Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer until your veggies are tender…for about a half hour.

Puree with a stick blender.  If you don’t have a stick blender, you can do it in batches in the blender or food processor.  For the size of this pot, this is the most handy.  Watch for splatters though…

Voila!  I had a lot of leftovers, which was my intent, and I froze the rest in several mason quart jars.

Kitchen scraps for the happy hens 🙂

This post was shared at The Morris Tribe’s Homesteader Blog Carnival; Simply Made Home’s Make a Move Monday; The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania; The Prairie Homestead’s Homestead Barn Hop; The Better Mom’s Mondays Link Up; Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesdays; Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays; Like a Mustard Seed’s Living Green Tuesdays; Cooking Traditional Foods Traditional Tuesdays; The Tasty Alternative’s Allergy Free Wednesdays; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays; Frugally Sustainable’s Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways; The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter; GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursday; Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday; Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays; The 21st Century Housewife’s Gallery of Favorites; Too Many Jars In My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday; Vegetarian Mamma’s Gluten Free Friday;

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Sep8

Salsa Verde (GAPS/SCD/GF)

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We got hooked on salsa verde awhile back…became particularly big fans of the Xochitl brand (Iif you haven’t had their corn chips and can…you should!  It’s the only food I really miss on GAPS!).  At $5.99 a jar…keeping up the addiction got a little steep.  🙂  So…last summer I started making my own.

Working with tomatillos is a little bit of a process…but it’s so worth it.  This year, I planted three tomatillo plants and have harvested a TON.  Last weekend, we made a double batch of this recipe adapted from one in a back issue of Organic Gardening magazine:

Salsa Verde (GAPS/SCD/GF):

5 pounds of tomatillos, husked and halved

2 onions, quartered

3 cloves of garlic

1 1/2 T. sea salt

1 habanero chile pepper, seeded (***BEWARE!  Just chopping this made me have a coughing fit!  Always wear plastic gloves when cutting hot peppers to preserve your hands and anything they touch for the next several hours!)

4 Anaheim peppers, seeded

2-4 Jalapeno peppers, seeded (depending on personal preference)

2 green peppers, seeded

2 T. fresh cilantro

Juice of one lime

I had some good help with picking the tomatillos…

And removing the husks…even got Grandpa into the act there…

And then I was on my own… 🙂

My easy-peasy semi-lazy woman’s way of tweaking this great recipe:  Rinse the sticky film off the tomatillos.  I decided not to roast them (because I was also in the midst of making sauerkraut and pickles and that just seemed like a lot of work), and ran everything through the food processor in shifts until it was well chopped and mixed.  I cooked it in a large stock pot on the stove until boiling, and simmered about 20 minutes – stirring every few minutes (this may be overkill, but I’ve been the victim of burnt salsa before!).

Ladle salsa into hot sanitized jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Check for air bubbles, wipe the rims clean and put on lids and rings.  Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  If you haven’t canned before, be sure that the middle of the lid has a “depression” instead of a raised appearance when it’s done.  If it doesn’t, either reprocess the jars in a boiling water bath, or stick in fridge for more immediate use.  If everything has sealed like it should, let them sit out for about a day before removing the rings and storing them.

And if anyone is wondering, this salsa does have a slight kick but it will not burn the hair off your head or anything wild like that. 🙂  It has a medium heat.  If you want it hotter, add another habanero or two…we are not that brave…

Disclaimer:  My kitchen was VERY VERY BUSY on the day I made these and that last picture reflects it…please ignore the mess in the background!!!

This post was shared at Butter Believer’s Sunday School; The Morris Tribe’s Homesteader Blog Carnival; Simply Made Home’s Make  a Move Monday; The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania; Living with Food Allergies and Celiac Disease Made from Scratch Monday; The Prairie Homesteader’s Homestead Barn Hop; Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesdays; Simply Sugar and Gluten Free Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays; Cooking Traditional Foods Traditional Tuesdays; Like a Mustard Seed’s Living Green Tuesdays; The Tasty Alternative’s Allergy Free Wednesdays; Frugally Sustainable’s Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays; GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursday; The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter; Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday; Too Many Jars in My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday; Vegetarian Mamma’s Gluten Free Fridays; The 21st Century Housewife’s Gallery of Favorites;

Sep1

Honeyed Bread and Butter Pickles (GAPS/SCD/GF)

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My eldest daughter has been asking me for the bread and butter pickles that I used to make during our pre-GAPS days.  Those pickles predate any healthy living efforts we have made as they had OODLES of white death (oops, I meant white sugar). These days, things like that are out of the question as we are all feeling pretty darned good and wish to keep it that way… 🙂  So…imagine the happiness in the house when I came across this recipe in the Grit Country Skills Series issue of “Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey“…

Honeyed Bread and Butter Pickles (GAPS/SCD/GF)

4 1/2 pounds pickling cucumbers, sliced 1/4″ thick

2 pounds yellow onions (I used red, it’s what I had), peeled and sliced 1/4″ thick

1/4 c. non-iodized salt

2 c. honey

3 c. cider vinegar

2 tsp yellow mustard seed

1/4 tsp whole cloves

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp celery seed

Mix cucumbers and onions with salt.  Let stand 6 hours.

Soak in water to cover for 1 hour; drain thoroughly.  Set aside.

In small stainless steel or enamel saucepan, bring honey, vinegar and spices to a boil.  Remove from heat and cover pan to keep contents hot.

Pack vegetables firmly into hot, sterilized pint jars, filling to 1/4″ from tops.

Add honey mixture, filling to 1/4: from tops.  Wipe rims of jars; top with hot lids (I boil mine first – don’t even know why, my mother in law taught me to do it!).  Screw on bands.

Place jars on rack in canning kettle of hot water.  (I don’t have anything fancy, just a big black $5 Kmart special enamel kettle that allows for enough water to cover the jars…and truthfully, I don’t even have a rack!)  Add water if needed to bring water level to 1″ above tops of jars.  Bring water to a rolling boil, and boil for 15 minutes.  Remove jars carefully and cool on wire rack (or a folded up dish towel works nicely too).

Just got done making these – I ended up with 9 pints total and had to make a second batch of the honey vinegar liquid to take care of the rest (the original recipe said 7 pints).  My jars are popping, and that is a great sound!  Aren’t they pretty???

This post was shared at Butter Believer’s Sunday School Blog Carnival; The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania; The Morris Tribe’s Homesteader Blog Carnival; The Better Mom’s Mondays Link Up; The Prairie Homestead’s Homestead Barn Hop; Living with Food Allergies and Celiac Disease’s Made from Scratch Monday; Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday;  Simply Sugar and Gluten Free’s Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays; Like a Mustard Seed’s Living Green Tuesdays; Cooking Traditional Foods Traditional Tuesdays; The Tasty Alternative’s Allergy Free Wednesdays; Simply Made Home’s Make a Move Monday; Frugally Sustainable’s Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays; GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursday; The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter; Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday; Too Many Jars in My Kitchen’s Fill Those Jars Friday; Our Little Coop’s Coop Hop; Vegetarian Mamma’s Gluten Free Friday;