Fast Fried Meal

Just one picture here because the need to eat was too strong and the annoyedness at getting home after a day at work on a bank holiday to find no one had bothered to start dinner was too much. Pah!

I thought about calling this “Pan Fried Liver and Steak with a smattering of tomatoes”  but that is so ridiculously pretentious. What else do you fry in? A tin can ( well yes, once on a beach in Kenya I did try to…. but that is another story! I ended up using a piece of discarded porcelain, and the Parrot Fish was magnificent…)??

 

Hmmm this picture just does not look as good as the final dish, can you see the tomato?

How quick?

Well, throw a lump of beef fat into a frying pan ( I used a cast iron Le Buyer)

Crush a few cloves of garlic and add to melting fat..

Finely slice any old beef  ( local grass-fed is always best, but I hope that goes without saying); feather steak in this instance btw and throw on top of the garlic..

 

Grab a tomato, slice and toss into pan. Actually do NOT toss, far too messy, unless you want extra clearing up to do.. better to  scrape off  the chopping board with knife with one graceful swoop..

 

Remember you have liver in the fridge, grab, slice finely and add to the beef..

Think  “Green = magnesium.” Rapidly rinse organic flies and soil off lettuce leaves, rip into pieces and plonk onto a dinner plate..

Tip cooked contents of said frying pan on top of the lettuce, ensuring no juices are left in the pan. Grind black pepper  over the meats and…

Garnish with Caraway Sauerkraut From start to finish this dish took less than 20 minutes to prepare and cook.

I did not add salt because there is plenty in the sauerkraut.

 

The sauerkraut took a lot longer to prepare. This portion is from a batch I started three months ago.

Enjoy!

Chicken Liver & Heart Parfait with Sour Cherries

Ingredients:

300 grams Organic free range chicken livers

100 grams Organic free range chicken hearts

20 – 30 dried sour cherries

1 onion

Clove of garlic

About 100 mls Chicken Stock

250 grams Butter

Method

Chop onion and garlic and add to pan with cherries and chicken stock

Simmer until the stock has mostly evaporated

It is important to reduce the stock so that the onions are thoroughly cooked and the flavour is intensified. This way, it is highly unlikely that you will need to add extra seasoning the sieving stage

Meanwhile, get your livers and hearts ready

I slice the hearts, otherwise they take longer to cook.   Add them with half a block of butter to your frying pan

When the butter has melted, add the livers

Contrary to government preference,  lightly cook the livers so that they are still slightly pink in the middle (otherwise you end up with a grainy, pate type finish)

Transfer to the blender / food processor. Add the rest of the butter

and blend

Get a bowl and sit a stainless steel  sieve on it, and pour in the parfait. It looks pretty yucky at this stage, but take a deep breathe in and savour the aroma

Push the mix through the sieve with the back of a  wooden spoon. This leaves out the chewy tubes so you have a smooth parfait

And you end up with this

Look at all the lovely fat 🙂

Pour into a serving bowl and allow to set, then keep in the fridge when not consuming this nutritionally dense, super delicious parfait

Delicious served with fermented veg;  here we have red cabbage with ginger, white cabbage with caraway seed, celeriac with cumin and celeriac and carrot.  Spread on lettuce leaves, fill in the grooves in  celery stalks, onto nut loaf, let your imagination inspire  you!

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/fat-is-good-the-message-from-a-man-who-swapped-sugar-for-bacon-and-eggs-1.1662117

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/fat-is-good-the-message-from-a-man-who-swapped-sugar-for-bacon-and-eggs-1.1662117

 

More truth about the lies the food industry would have us believe. This man was fit, and had a heart attack, he got angry and wanted to find out why.

Artificial Sweeteners.. The Bitter Truth

Here is a powerpoint presentation I put together a while ago when I gave a talk on artificial sweeteners. I hope it makes sense and is of use, even though it reads like bullet points:

The Savoury UnProfiterole

Follow the recipe for Unprofiteroles.

When they are cooked, they can be stuffed with savoury foods, be it ham and cheese, pate, or as in here,:

 

Smoked salmon and cream cheese, dressed with lemon, ground black pepper and fresh dill.

 

If you want a “Bap” sized savoury Unprofiterole, put much larger dollops of the uncooked mix onto the baking tray.

TIP!

Get up 10 minutes earlier than usual, make the Unprofiterole mix, and spoon bap sized dollops onto your greaseproofed baking trays, put in to the oven to cook whilst you are taking a shower and then you can have warm “UnBaps” for breakfast, or put into your lunch box.

The UnProfiterole

Airy, light, melt in the mouth and oh so easy to make  they are a real family affair when it comes to preparing (and eating!). Oh!! and super LOW Carbohydrate..

Ingredients:

6 Eggs

200 Grams Cream Cheese

1 tsp baking powder

Filling;

300 mls double cream

60 grams 85% chocolate

Dollop of butter

Method:

Separate the egg yolks from the whites.

Whisk the whites until they are very stiff .. like this:

Meanwhile, whisk the baking powder into the egg yolks:

And beat the cream cheese into the egg yolks:

Just make sure that the egg whites are beaten so that you can turn the container up side down and they won’t fall out…

Take the next step very gently, as you fold the egg and cheese mixture into the egg whites:

All folded and lots of air has been retained within the egg white:

Now put golf ball sized servings onto trays lined with greaseproof paper:

Place in the oven, Gas mark 3, 190 C :

Bake for about 20 minutes. Take out the top tray, and move the next tray up.

If the bottom of the Unprofiterole is very moist, turn over the unprofiteroles and return the tray to the bottom of the oven until the top tray is cooked.

Whilst cooling, whip the double cream:

Melt the chocolate with the butter. When half of the chocolate has melted, switch off the heat and continue to stir until completely melted:

Gently insert a sharp knife into an Unprofiterole and move is across the base to open it up:

Like this:

Fill a piping bag or syringe with the whipped cream, and pipe into your Unprofiterole:

When all the Unprofiteroles have been filled with cream, decorate with the melted chocolate and butter:

You could add a few raspberries and blackcurrants (we just happen to have some growing in the garden right now)

Put the Unprofiteroles into the fridge to allow the chocolate to set, and then devour!!

Orange Almond Cake

 

Orange Cake with a scrumptious dark chocolate blanket

This is a delicious moist cake that tastes better a few days after it has been baked, so try to be patient before tucking in!

 

INGREDIENTS

2 medium-sized organic oranges

250 grams organic ground almonds

6 free range organic eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp unrefined salt

 

Cut up the oranges into small pieces and remove the pips

Put into a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour. Take care not to boil dry and burn the pan.

Put the cooked orange (yes, peel and all) in to a food processor and whizz till all is roughly blended (do experiment with each cake you make to find just how smooth or otherwise you like your orange).

Add the eggs, baking powder and salt and blend

Add the almonds

Pour into a  9 inch square lined baking tin or silicon mould and bake in the middle of  the oven, gas mark 5,  375 Farenheit or 190 Celsius for 45 – 60 minutes.

 

When cool  melt 100 gm plain chocolate (at least 70 %) and pour over the top of the cake. Leave to set.

Leave out  overnight and then store in the fridge.

This is a rich cake.  You should easily get 12 servings from this.

Coming Soon

Orange Cake with a scrumptious dark chocolate blanket

Clarified Butter aka Ghee

The two main reasons for making clarified butter / ghee are:

1) To remove milk proteins

2) I am far less likely to burn the butter oil when cooking!

Ridiculously expensive in the shops, at around £8 for 300 organic mls, you can make the same quantity for half that price.

How?

Take 2 blocks of organic butter and either put them into a saucepan, or an oven proof glass jug,  like this:

  Butter slowly melting in a saucepan

Into mass production here!

As the butter slowly melts in the oven, on a low setting, you can see the milk proteins separating and falling to the bottom of the jug

When the butter has completely melted, you need to pour the butter oil into a sterilised glass jar.

To ensure that the proteins don’t mix in with the butter oil, I GENTLY and slowly pour the oil through several layers of muslin or a thick tea towel, to catch any proteins. The proteins are the white layer.

This is the butter oil still hot.  When set, it will be a buttery yellow colour, and slightly grainy.

This is the “set” butter oil / ghee, or clarified butter. Happy Cooking 😉

Unlasagne

Hello and welcome to the UnPCKitchen, a grain free place that believes in real food for human beings (and cats for that matter, I have 3 of them, all raw foodies).

I am Caroline Spear, Nutritionist  Certified GAPS Practitioner  Homoeopath  Doula and  Mamma.

Tonight we ate Unlasagne. A simple recipe calling for:

1 onion

1 carrot

2 Sticks of celery, all finely diced and fried in beef fat.

Add to that a few chopped tomatoes, a good sprinkling of organic mixed herbs, black pepper and about 1kg of fattty minced  grass fed beef and a few tablespoons of bone stock. Cook thoroughly.

Whilst cooking, dollop a decent lump of butter into a saucepan, add about 300 grams of  good full fat cream cheese (avoid any that contain anything other than milk, starter culture and salt), a dash of full fat milk (preferably raw) and stir over a low heat until the you have a smooth sauce. Add about 125 grams of grated cheese. Stir till all melted.

Take a 250gm piece of Emmantal and slice very finely. I grate mine on the widest part of my grater.

Assembly… using a 2 litre oven proof bowl, I used one that measures 24cm X 19cm X 7cm, layer the ingredients. Start with the cooked mince, then a layer of sauce, then a layer of Emmantal, finish with a layer of sauce and topped with the remaining Emmantal.

 

Bake in an oven,  gas mark 5 for 20 – 30 mins till hot through and Emmantal has melted on top.

This is a nourishing, filling dish that should feed 6 people. You can serve on it’s own, or with green leafy veg, swimming in butter or a salad.