Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

All week I have been looking forward to going to the Wayland Winter Farmers' Market and the raw milk dairy today. On our trip to the dairy last weekend, we realized that there is a farmers' market along the way on Saturdays (perfect!). But my hopes were dashed on Thursday when the weather man started predicting that we were going to get a major snow storm today. I was so disappointed. It was definitely not worth the risk of travelling 40 miles in a snow storm, so I thought I might have to find another way to do our food shopping for the week. Luckily, I woke up this morning to learn that the storm is going to miss us, and it looks like our field trip is back on. (It's the little things in life that make us happy, right?)

Soups and stews are such satisfying meals during the winter. I love the flavors in this soup so much that I have made a version of this three times in the last month. The recipe started with just spicy sausage, white beans and kale in chicken broth, but I have kept adding vegetables each time. This time around it was not a looker. We had purple cabbage that I wanted to eat up, so I added it in, and it definitely turned the whole soup a crazy color. I think I will stick with green cabbage in the future (unless it's Halloween). Some soups require lots of time for the flavors to develop, but the spicy sausage and chicken stock immediately give this soup a shot of flavor, so it is pretty quick to make.



Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

2 T olive oil
1 lb spicy sausage
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
1/2 cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bunch of kale, torn into bite size pieces
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups of white beans

Heat up oil in a Dutch oven and brown the sausage. Remove the sausage, and add the carrot, onion, celery and cabbage to the pot. Cook until tender (about 30 minutes). Add the kale, chicken stock and white beans. Cook until the kale is tender (15-30 minutes).

This post is part of Sunday Night Soup Night.

Haddock with Herb, Lemon and Butter Sauce

Something we have noticed upon moving to the Boston area is that there is a bounty of locally caught fish. There are fish CSAs advertising at the various farmers' markets and Whole Foods has fish out of Gloucester, MA. All these fresh, local options are making us enjoy fish a little more frequently. This week we had some haddock. We both like the firm, meaty texture. In the past we have prepared it with panko bread crumbs, but now that we are avoiding grains we decided to just pan fry it and serve it with an herb, lemon and butter sauce. It was superb! The only downside was that there weren't any leftovers and I actually had to make our lunches the next morning.

We enjoyed our haddock with spinach salad and mashed butternut squash. Please notice the lovely gray plates...we thought we'd give the ugly yellow ones a night off.

Haddock with Herb, Lemon and Butter Sauce
4 T butter
1 lb haddock (or other firm fish)
2 T olive oil
1/4 C chicken broth (or fish or vegetable broth)
1 T fresh lemon juice
1 t lemon zest
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 T fresh herbs, finely chopped (we used chervil, dill, parsley and tarragon)

Melt 2 T of butter in a skillet, and add the fish fillets. Cook for about 3 minutes per side (depending on the thickness of the fish). Place the cooked fish on a serving platter. In the same pan, add the chicken broth. Deglaze the pan and cook until the broth slightly reduces. Add the rest of the ingredients and turn off the heat. Let sit for a couple of minutes and then drizzle over the fish.

Enjoy!

This post is part of Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday, Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday, Frugal Food Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, and Friday Food Flicks.

Curry Chicken Salad

We have been making lots of chicken stock lately, and that has been leaving us with a fair bit of leftover boiled chicken. Something I have been making on a regular basis is chicken salad. Curry Chicken Salad is my new favorite lunch. It's quick and easy, but it's far from boring. I made some for a lunch gathering last weekend and everyone was excited about it. Homemade mayonnaise really takes it over the top. I have used this recipe from A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa.

Curry Chicken Salad
2 1/2 C Chicken, chopped
3/4 C Mayonnaise
1 1/2 T Curry Powder
2 ribs of Celery, chopped
Dried Fruit - optional (golden raisins or dried cranberries)
Nuts - optional (sliced almonds, walnuts or pecans)

Combine all ingredients. I use about a handful of the fruit and nuts. Serve over salad greens, or on a bread of your choice.

What's your favorite use for leftover chicken?

This post is part of Gluten-Free Wednesdays, Hearth and Soul Blog Hop, Works for Me Wednesday, Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Ditching the Sugar and Grain (at least for now)

Our cake and cupcake pans all have a new use...holding water on top of the radiators to help humidify the air.

I have mentioned in previous posts that we are taking a break from sugar and grains. Here is a little background info to explain why:

We have a 7 month baby girl. I was very determined to breast feed her, but it was not an easy road. We had problem after problem.* Just when things were starting to get a little bit more tolerable, white patches appeared in baby girl's mouth. It was the dreaded thrush! (For the uninitiated, it is a yeast overgrowth in the baby's mouth and it is passed between baby and the nursing mother.) We first tried some home remedies, but they didn't work, so we went to the pediatrician and started our first round of Nystatin. I cut out sugar and most starchy foods, took probiotics and ate fermented food. The thrush seemed to clear up, but as soon as we stopped the medicine it came right back. After our third round of medicine, I promised myself we weren't going to use the medicine again. There had to be another way...

Right about that time we moved to the Boston area, and I met a naturopathic nutritionist. I described our ongoing saga with thrush and asked if she had any advice. She suggested we both continue our courses of probiotics and that I go "Paleo" and cut out grains and sugars entirely. I already knew that would be a good idea, but she gave me the extra push to really commit. She also suggested that I take one tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar before each meal (to make the system more basic and less conducive to the yeast) and to eat two tablespoons of freshly ground flax seed each day (this would help sweep out the yeast and provide a base for the good bacteria). She also approved of my plan to start giving baby girl some homemade chicken stock every day to start helping heal her digestive track (more on feeding babies in a future post). After 3 weeks on this plan, the thrush disappeared and stayed gone. This was over Christmas, so it was hard to avoid all the seasonal treats, but totally worth the sacrifice after 3 months of battling thrush.

Well, the story doesn't end there. After the thrush had been gone for a month or so, I started to slip. Sometimes I would forget to take the vinegar, probiotics or flax seed. I stayed pretty true to the food at meal time, but I started to sneak an illicit snack in the afternoons. I started a little ritual of a pastry and a decaf coffee in the late afternoon. It gave me something to look forward to, and seemed to help ground me in this new, unfamiliar landscape. It was my secret little treat. To top it all off, I devoured a box of homemade peppermint bark sent to us by NYC friends in just two days. Of course, my body was on to my secret. I started to develop dry, itchy red patches of skin at my hairline and behind my ears (I'm sure a doctor would diagnose it as either eczema or psoriasis). I have had a lifelong battle with dandruff and itchy scalp, but this was much worse. I knew the pastries had to go, and I had to become more serious about ditching the sugar and the grain. A couple of weeks back on the wagon, and the patches are gone.

I'm not exactly sure what the long term solution is. I'm still nursing and my first priority is to provide excellent nutrition to baby girl. I need to do more research into GAPS and other diets focused on eliminating candida that will not be too harsh for nursing mothers. I have read of issues with yeast die-off and the potential for toxins released into the mother's milk with some diets.

Have you had experiences with thrush or yeast overgrowth? How did you deal with it? Have you been pleased with the results?



*If you are a new mom, and having trouble nursing please feel free to contact me. I am not an official expert, but have felt your pain and can commiserate and offer our experiences. Although, when I was having trouble nursing, I was not reading food blogs because I was consumed with looking for solutions to my breastfeeding issues in books and on-line, so I'm not expecting my inbox to start overflowing with breastfeeding related messages. Just in case, I found Mothering and La Leche League to be helpful.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade and Monday Mania at Healthy Home Economis.

The First Family Farm Visit

Our baby girl has begun saying, "Fffffff," and we always find ourselves responding with lots of words that begin with F (food, fun, etc). Yesterday we made a trip out to Eastleigh Farm in Framingham, Ma for our first family visit to a farm. (lots of new F words to add to our rotation - first, family, farm, Framingham) In Massachusetts, individuals are able to buy raw milk only from a store on the farm. So, we made the trip to get some raw milk, eggs and butter. We had lots of fun wandering around the farm, seeing the milking cows, the young cows (pictured above), meeting the farmer and enjoying the sunshine.

We are already enjoying the sweet, fresh milk and looking forward to some homemade yogurt. Here are some other things we plan to eat this week:

Monday - Chipotle Burgers over Spinach Salad
Tuesday - Pan fried Local Haddock with an herb, lemon and butter sauce with squash and broccoli
Wednesday - Spicy Sausage, Kale and Bean Soup
Thursday - Chicken, sauteed spinach and squash
Friday - Vegetable Curry

(Only sqush 2 out of 5 nights. That's a little better)

What are your menu plans for the week?


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday and Monday Mania.

Dinner Inspiration

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been trying to avoid sugar, flour and grains (more on why in a future post). These limitations have put us in a definite dinner rut of meat, winter squash and kale/chard. So I set out to find some inspiration that looked tasty, healthy and affordable. Here's what I found:

10 Grain-Free Dinners on a Budget from Holistic Kid

A delicious looking/sounding Taco Salad at Riddle Love. Also planning to check out her weekly meal plans too.

One of my favorite blogs, Nourished Kitchen, is always inspiring, but this Chipotle Chile, Chicken and Black Bean Soup looked especially appealing to me.

Do you have any recipes to recommend for an affordable grain-free dinner? Please share your dinner inspiration.



Last night we enjoyed a roasted lemon garlic chicken with baked butternut squash and sauteed red chard with garlic. Still part of our basic pattern, but it was tasty. We drizzled the pan drippings over the squash, and I highly recommend it.

Lemon Garlic Chicken
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
zest of 1-2 lemons
1 pasture raised chicken
1/2 C Chicken Stock
2 T butter

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix the garlic and lemon zest together. Gently loosen the chicken skin and push the garlic and lemon under the skin. Try to evenly distribute over the whole chicken. Place the chicken into a dutch oven and add the chicken stock. Rub the butter over the chicken. Cook the chicken for 1-2 hours (until a leg wiggles easily). Remove the lid, and turn up the heat to 400 degrees and cook for another 20 minutes or until the skin is golden.

No-Noodle Lasagna

We moved and we are now writing to you from the Boston area. (Will have to rework the blog a bit.) It's been a big adjustment - for starters we now have a car! Moving to Boston during winter isn't ideal. One - it's a little grey and cold to get out and walk around to explore our new neighborhood. Two - local food is hard to come by making it extra difficult for us newbies to find all the locally sourced milk, eggs, veggies and meat we love. Apparently, we took all those wonderful greenmarkets of NYC for granted. Boston does have winter greenmarkets, but they are farther from home and have fewer vendors. Our next plan is to head out to some of the farms to try out their farm stores. Might as well take advantage of having a car, right?



We are working on not eating sugar, flour and grains for a few weeks. This has left us eating a lot of dinners of meat, winter squash and kale. It was time to mix it up a bit, so I headed down to the neighborhood grocery store to see what organic veggies I could scrounge up. I came up with zucchini and eggplant (out of season in Boston, but you do the best you can). I decided to make some lasagna using slices of zucchini and eggplant as the noodles.

In this recipe, I used a jar of organic spaghetti sauce. I have read about canned tomatoes leaching BPA out of the can lining, and I haven't been able to find tomatoes in jars. So, I have resorted to using jars of spaghetti sauce instead. Do you know where to find tomatoes in jars?

No-Noodles Lasagna
2 T olive oil
2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise
1 medium eggplant, sliced lengthwise
1 lb grass fed ground beef
28 oz spaghetti sauce
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 t dried parsley
1/2 t dried basil
1/2 t dried oregano
8 oz mozzarella cheese, grated

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Oil two baking sheets and place the the slices of zucchini and eggplant on the sheets. Bake until softened - about 15-20 minutes. While those are in the oven, brown the ground beef, and mix in the spaghetti sauce. In a separate bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, eggs and spices. Layer the ingredients into a casserole pan. I put a bit of sauce in the bottom of the pan, eggplant, sauce, ricotta mixture, mozzarella, zucchini, sauce, ricotta mixture and mozzarella. Bake for 45 minutes to warm it through.

*I like pre-baking the veggies because I think there is nothing worse than under cooked zucchini and eggplant. Years ago, I made this for a party but didn't pre-bake the veggies. I baked it for more than 2 hours and they were still not quite done.

This post is part of Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday, Jenny's Alphabe-Thursdays, Frugal Food Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, and Make Ahead Monday.