Beef

Recently Whole Foods had a great sale on their organic, grass-fed beef. I stocked up and froze about 7 pounds. While purchasing it I did wonder where it came from. My husband answered my question by sending me this article. Yay for local foods!

I began incorporating grass-fed beef into our diet a few months ago. It is an phenomenol source of iron, protein, b12, choline, and saturated fats. Yes, saturated fats are good for you despite what you have been told.

This is one of the best recipes I have made with our beef yet. So simple, so good.

Don't forget saturated fat

Not only does calcium and Vitamin D protect against osteoporosis, but saturated fat will as well. In conjunction with Vit D, calcium is able to be deposited into bone. This article fails to mention it's role, as do most articles and information out there about prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. The type of Vit D is also quite important. Ideally both D2 and D3 are in the diet together (whole milk, whole milk products, cod liver oil) and not supplemented separately. D2 alone has shown to actually increase sponginess of the bones instead of hardening them which is why most lower-fat milk is now supplemented with D3 instead (sited here and here). Unfortunately D2 is still used quite frequently in other food supplements, an example being soy milk.

I will be doing a blog series about saturated fats and their healthy benefits to the diet on my other blog, Real Food Mamas. When the first part is up I will link to it here.

I find it incredibly fascinating how little is published about the role of fats within the human body. By reading books and articles recently, I have learned so much about the necessity of saturated fat, the omega fats, and the way certain fats (poly-unsaturated, trans fats) can harm the body.

Success in baking

I'm not an expert like my good friend V but I do really, really enjoy baking. After seeing the ingredients (wheat!) and price (really?!) for commercial teething biscuits I decided to bake Rooster some from scratch. I found a basic recipe from several different sites:

3 TBSP oil (I used olive oil)

1 cup rice cereal (can be flavored, IE banana)

1 cup flour (I used brown rice flour)

1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon (I added this to the recipe for flavor and to mask the taste of olive oil)

ice cold water

Mix dry ingredients, add oil, and start with 1/4 cup water. Add more water until dough is sticky (very sticky!) and pulls away from the sides. Roll out (or press with fingers like I did) to 1/4" thickness, cut into desired shapes, place on cookie sheet and bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes (I kept adding more time, probably about 20 minutes total - keep checking on them because you definitely want them cooked through so they don't break easily).

After they completely cooled I gave one to Rooster. He kinda looked at it and then looked at me, looked at it again and did nothing. So I grabbed one myself and starting mouthing it. He's a smart cookie and did the same thing. And continued slobbering all over it for the next 25 minutes. A success!

I do have to say that despite the simple ingredients these biscuits are quite tasty. But then I do love, love, love cinnamon!

Oh, and a warning: these are very, very messy. I would suggest having baby wear only a diaper and definitely have him/her in a high chair (or whatever you use). The goop will be everywhere!

Here is the door

Bye, bye vegetarianism, hello omnivorism.

I prepared some bison meat for Roscoe's birthday dinner the other night. My husband proceeded to imitate the scene from Dances with Wolves for Rooster's benefit. Tatanka, tatanka? Tatanka! Very amusing.

The bison was quite delicious I must admit. It didn't take very long at all to prepare. I sauteed a few patties in some olive oil on the stove top, plus additional time in the microwave (ahem, a wee bit bloody on the inside still). I didn't want to over cook them because I guess it's easy to do that with bison meat.

I also made some chicken a couple of nights last week. Pretty simple when you have a silicone steam cooker from Curves (thanks to my mother in law!) that can be popped into the microwave and done within 10 min. Look for something similar at Amazon, Wal-Mart or William Sonoma. A must have for moms who need to make a very quick dinner. It came with recipes and cooking instructions for chicken, salmon, shrimp and white fish. I'm wondering if red meat can be prepared too...?

This is how I prepared the chicken on night one:

Olive oil to coat bottom

8 oz raw chicken brushed with olive oil and topped with cilantro, black pepper & ginger powder

2 cups frozen veggies

1 TBSP lime juice

Cook in steamer on high for ~8 minutes or until chicken is at 165-170 degrees

And to wrap up a week of new experiences I prepared some salmon on Saturday for an early father's day celebration. It turned out perfect! Quite an achievement for cooking it for the first time . I put the salmon in tin foil with olive oil, parsley and cilantro and baked it at 375 for 20 minutes and then broiled it for 1 minute. Easy. I also made some tabbouleh salad for a side dish, which was much more time consuming with all the mincing and chopping, but worth it.

So far, so good with adding meat to our diet. I am going to be very picky with the type and quality of my meat consumption though. It's not going to be a on the daily menu for sure but I do like the idea (and Roscoe digs it too!) of additional options. Especially additional options with high nutritional value.

Real Dairy

I never thought I would regularly drink cow's milk again. I was wrong. Milk delivery service from Royal Crest Dairy began last week and I am so impressed! There is no after-taste, it doesn't taste scorched, and it has a texture to it that is absent from not-so-fresh milk.

I am hooked. Not only for the taste, but also the fact that it's packed with nutrition.

Now, my hunt for raw milk has been less successful. Here in Colorado I am unable to just walk into a store and purchase a 1/2 gallon and be done. There is a share program requirement. So, I got to thinking about our travel plans to Nebraska and Iowa this summer. Could I possibly try some there? My hunt continues...

Rooster has tried various new food items recently, one being yogurt. He's loving it! I bought Brown Cow plain yogurt with the cream still on top. Wow! Very yummy.

UPDATE:

I realized Rooster has access to unlimited raw milk on a daily basis, the lucky little guy!

Meat as food?

We love food in our household. Roscoe loves a salad for dinner every night (me too!). Little Rooster has always loved breastfeeding (with such frequency I sometimes wondered if I was producing enough milk - bad thought!) and now digs most foods I've introduced (avocado, banana, sweet potato and prunes are favorites of his).

I have been limiting my meat intake for 11 years now, eating tuna, salmon, and, every couple of years, some chicken. Don't worry, I'm not some hyper-vegetarian who is going to lecture you about the dangers of eating meat. I became a "vegetarian" because meat is rather yucky tasting and I couldn't stand the way most of it is raised. Roscoe does eat meat, just very little at home. It's not that I ban meat in our home (maybe pork...), we just don't buy it or desire to prepare it. Well, things will be changing as we both want Rooster to be a thriving little boy by eating meat.

So now I need to figure out the best way to introduce meat into our household. It's been years since I have cooked anything other than chicken and even then I had to check the Internet and call my mom to make sure I was doing it right. The first major question is should I begin to eat meat again to set a good example for my son? Probably. Others are what type of meats, how should I cook them, do I only buy organic, how often do we eat them, etc.

I happened across the book Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck at the library. Excellent timing! I think I glanced through her first book, Real Food, awhile back and liked the basic idea: purge processed foods from your diet* and stick to foods nature intended. We basically already do this with some exceptions (soy milk {or juice as she refers to it}, cereals, granola bars, popsicles).

The ideas I've gathered from her that we will implement is to drink cow milk not soy/almond/rice "juices" (I may even try raw milk -this freaks my husband out) and meats from animals fed according to their natural diets plus hormone-free and antibiotic-free. She mentions that organic doesn't necessarily mean any of the above and to read all labels closely. I learned that my aversion to the taste of meat may be because of the quality of meat I was consuming, so by sticking with "real" meat it should be quite tasty. Hmmm, sounds tempting especially combined with all the nutrition packed in meat that she discusses.

I have much more to learn, of course, but I have a good place to start. Updates to come. Until then I will be perusing my recipe box to see what I can make with meat.

*diet will always refer to overall normal food intake during the day, not to a calorie-restricted food intake like it is often referred to. I don't believe in "dieting" - eat right, eat in moderation, and exercise .