Easy Baked Chicken Liver

Two days in a row grocery shopping with my 4 yo and he b-lines to the chicken feet section and grabs a pack. Today, I figure I would help him reach higher for the chicken livers. Livers, all organ meats are known for their nutrient density, they do have an interesting texture and if not prepared probably it can turn some people off. I am very pleased with this easy recipe to make another quick and simple nutrient dense snack. I am sure my kids are ready to pack these for school snack to "impress" their friend. Why should you eat organ meats? 

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Easy Baked Chicken Liver

Serves 4     Prep time 10 mins + 1 hrs marinade time   Cook time 30 mins
Ingredients

• 1 lb. Chicken Livers, trimmed and remove membrane if you wish
• 1 tbsp bacon fat, melted

Marinade

• 1 tbsp Apple Cider vinegar
• 1 tsp fish sauce ( I use Red Boat ) 
• 2-3 sprigs cilantro, finely chopped
• 1 green onion
• 1 garlic green

Instructions

1. Mix all marinade ingredients together and toss to coat chicken liver in it
2. Cover and let marinade 1 hour in fridge
3. Preheat oven to 375F
4. Melt bacon fat in small pan and mix into chicken livers
5. Spread on baking pan spaced out with 1" apart
6. Bake 20 mins, flip and bake another 10 mins

Serve warm with fermented vegetables or rainbow faux rice.

Rainbow Faux rice

a great side in an endive boat for my little one as those innocent looking cherry tomatoes ( nightshade)  will not settle well in my tummy

My food processor was always tucked away in the back of the bottom cupboards until my recent love of making faux rice. I am embracing how to make faux rice with all sorts of vegetables, the trick is not to over process nor over cook them to keep their crunch. Here are a couple of my favorite AIP rice dishes. Finally some comfort food in the bowl to eat with my chopsticks.

 Rainbow Faux rice

A colorful fried faux rice

Serves 4         Prep time 15 mins         Cook time 15 mins 

Ingredients

• 1 small parsnip, peeled and cubed
• 2 small turnip, peeled and cubed
• 2 carrots, peeled and cubed
• 1 head of broccoli, separate stem and florets, cut stem into cubes, breakup florets into small clusters
• 2 stalks of garlic greens
• 1 small purple yam, peeled and cubed
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• pink himalayan salt to taste
• fish sauce
• 1 tbsp fat of your choice (bacon fat, duck fat or coconut oil)
• optional: garnish with cilantro 

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, mix ground pork, grated ginger, salt and fish sauce and let sit while you prepare the vegetables
2. Put small batches of prepared vegetables ( accept broccoli florets) into processor and pulse until they are size of beans. You may need to empty the pulsed vegetables a few times to prevent uneven and over processoring 
3. Pulse broccoli florets last in an emptied the processor, stir all processed vegetables well to mix
4. Heat fat on Medium heat in a deep and large pan 
5. Sautee vegetables for 5 mins, turn heat off and cover
6. In another pan, on medium heat, fry marinaded ground pork until cooked, no more pink
7. You can mix cooked pork together with vegetables or serve it vegetables on the bottom and pork on top.  Garnish with cilantro 

Coconut kefir yam ginger smoothie

Serves 2   Prep time 10 mins ( plus cooling time for cooked yam )

Ingredients 

• 1 small white yam, peeled and sliced into 1/2" slices
• 1 c. water to cook yam with
• 1/4 c coconut milk kefir or coconut milk
• 1/4 tsp ( or more if you like it spicy like me) peeled and grated ginger
• optional: 1/2 tsp maple syrup
• optional: freeze dried strawberries to garnish

Instruction

1. In a small pot, cook yam slices in 1 c of water until soft
2. Cool in fridge 
3. Put all ingredients accept of garnish in blender and blend until smooth
4. Garnish with freeze dried strawberries.

Enjoy

Better Consommé

When I was little,  my mother used to make me this clear soup with ground beef, it's so simple and yet so tasty. Even though it does not compare with a long and slower simmer of bone broth, it is a quick and nutritious way to an easy bowl of soup. 

Better "Consommé"

Ingredient

• 1/2 lbs grass fed ground beef
• 3 c cold water
• 1/4" slice ginger, smashed
• sea salt to taste
• garnish with chopped green onions and parsley ( optional)

Instruction

1. In a small pot, add all ingredients and give it a stir
2. soak for 20 mins until the blood has been drown out of the ground meat
3. Bring mixture to boil uncovered for 2-3 mins
4. Cover and turn heat off and let sit for 5-10 mins
5. Laddle into bowl and garnish with chopped green onions and  parsley

You can serve only the broth or with the ground meat. If you want to enjoy the traditional style of consume, you can strain through a sieve. 

This make a super quick broth to serve with meal or as a stand alone snack. 

Back to School AIP easy crispy tender chicken legs

For families with children, school is starting tomorrow. I am thinking up easy yummy recipes for the busy pace. Here is my AIP low FODMAP chicken legs served with a side of pan fried brussel sprouts, garlic greens and pancetta. A squeeze of lemon juice adds a spark to this meal. 

AIP easy crispy and tender chicken legs

Serves 5  Prep time 20mins ( up to 2 hours of marinade time)  Cook time 1hr 10 mins

Ingredients

• 5 chicken legs with thighs attached

For marinade

• 2-3 stocks of garlic greens
• 2 green onions ( greens only for lowFODMAP)
• 2 stocks of celery
• 1/2" ginger root
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 c water
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp himalayan sea salt

Instructions

1. Put all marinade ingredients into blender and blend until somewhat smooth
2. Put chicken legs into a zip lock bag and pour marinade into bag
3. Clean bag and shake to mix 
4. Open bag to remove as much air as possible and reseal the bag
5. Let marinade in fridge between 30 mins to 2 hours. 
6. Preheat oven 315F
7. Remove chicken out of bag and lay in ( raised ) oven tray - the ones that came with the oven.
8. Bake at 315F for 30mins per side ( flip once) 
9. Turn oven to Broil and broil for 5 -10 mins to brown and crispy up skin. 

Moving Forward - Heal me through my feet update

Happy New Year everyone! I am really excited that 2015 is here and thought it would be fitting to report about my feet retraining progress. Get it, moving forward! This is also an update to my post in September " Heal me through my feet"

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This past summer, I reconnected with an old friend who had quit her desk job and become a Restorative Exercise Specialist Our catching up conversations brought us to sharing our healing journey, me on my gut and hers on her alignment. I was inspired by her to go more bare feet and attempt to rebuild my fallen arches.  I had watch my body go through so much amazing healing that I want to give my feet a go. After all, I am physically lighter and my feet are much stronger from my dedicated yoga practice. I bought myself a pair of Five Finger running shoes to walk around in, they feel like I practicing yoga all the time. Another thought is since I spend so much time standing in the kitchen, I thought I would do my arch retraining there too. Here is a photo of my feet lined up along the tile lines for alignment. Apparently, you are supposed to line up the outside of your feet to be parallel instead of the inside.

Always on my feet while cooking, might as well strengthen those little muscles to better support my body

I brought up the idea up to my chiropractor and his vague responds was " it's possible but not probably"

The other day, I stepped out my shower onto the wooden stool, mainly used to help the little ones climbing in and out of the tub, and noticed the shape of my foot print were narrower. There were less print around the middle of the feet where the arches are, which means... I am regaining some arches.

I am pleasantly surprised to rediscover my long lost arches and wanted to thank my friend for the knowledge and encouragement.

Here is my friend's link that explains more about who to strengthen those feet and better your alignment. http://www.movementrevolution.ca/dear-friend-get-yourself-some-alignment-here-part-1/

Book Review: 28 days of Low FODMAP AIP by Christina Feindel

Low FODMAP AIP Sherpherd's Pie

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase through the product links, I’ll receive a small commission to support my time in reviewing the product, although this post is sponsored, all opinions are my own. 

When I first learned about the e-book 28 days of Low FODMAP AIP by Christina Feindel,  I was super excited that I am not alone eating off of this seemingly limited menu. For the past few months, I have been stumbling along the AIP ( autoimmune protocol ) path, looking for low FODMAP friendly recipes and it hasn't been easy. Like Christina says in the introduction of her book " As if no grains, legumes, dairy, eggs, nightshades, nuts, seeds, or alcohol wasn’t daunting enough, you’ve also decided to try eliminating FODMAPs from your autoimmune protocol diet. " I did feel like I was crazy trying to embark on a more limiting diet than AIP, but I started to feel the difference after only a few days eliminating the high FODMAP foods like garlic and onions out of my diet. So the low FODMAP journey here I come! 

Instead of only telling you how delicious the recipes are in this book ( that will come later) I want to outline what I have learned about how to enjoy AIP low FODMAP cooking. 

• Use new herbs, garlic greens might not be as easy to find but are worth the search, no garlic? no problem, use the greens
• Explore and combine more vegetables; parsnip can beat potato hands down, it is our new stable root vegetables in the house
• Plan your meals; improving time management means less stress and more satisfied taste buds and happy bellies.

The more I learn about tweaking my healing diet, the more I have to be open to trying new things in the kitchen. As much as I am pretty open to new cooking ideas, I have my comfort zone that is sometimes hard to break out of... who doesn't? In the book, Christina showed me how to uses herbs and spices that are compliant and compliments each other very well. 

The recipe I chose to try in the book is from the "One Pot Meal" section. Running a family is busy business and as much as I am all about starting my healing in the kitchen, it is nice not to be tied to it all the time. Christina talks about batch cooking and meal planning which are key factors in making a busy family run smoothly.

 Sherpherd's pies is a fond childhood dish of mine. This was my go to family meal but as my healing diet changed, more foods had to be eliminated. Glutens was easy to replace, I used tapioca starch instead of corn starch or flour to thicken the mix, then with AIP, I replaced Worcestershire sauce with Apple cider and balsamic vinegar, but when FODMAP came into the picture, I was starting to loose my enthusiasm moving forward with my cooking. After all, how can I make anything tasty without garlics and onions on top of the void of nightshades.

Enters Christina's 28 days of Low FODMAP AIP book.

In Christina's ebook, a wide variety of root vegetables like turnips, parsnips and taro are used to create interesting textures and flavours. Using the greens of garlic, leek, green onions and more herbs means there is no shortage in flavor in these truly flavourful dishes.

Now comes the part that I tell you how delicious the Sherpherd's pie turned out.

Before dinner, my son asked me whether this Sherpherd's pie was sweet or savory, "... is it a dinner or dessert?" I answered that it is savory, but by the time I was trying not to finish the whole pan at the dinner table, I realized this recipe created the effect of a dessert sweet pie. I think the magic comes from the carrots, parsnip and turnip combination. These root vegetables are naturally sweet and pair with my himalayan pink salt flavored grass fed ground beef from my favourite biodiverse farm, the result is almost addictive. I had to remind myself that I wasn't having an off rail ( food cheating ) moment when trying not to polish the whole pan. I was also pleasantly surprised that no thickener was used and the dish did not get soupy. The one thing about the recipe that confused me a little was the topping, I almost missed the part that the cooked turnips were to be food processed smooth and used as the top layer.

I wish I had found this book earlier when I started my FODMAP journey, but then I might not appreciate it as much. I probably would have taken for granted all the hard work Christina had done with organizing the shopping list and meal planning for 28 days. If you are interested in watching out for FODMAP foods to help heal your gut and rest of your body, I highly recommend this book. It will make your life easier. Here is the link for your copy of the ebook.