As Close to Following a Recipe as I Get

     I catch a lot of slack at my house for my method of making a recipe.  It started pretty much right after I was married.  My husband was used to his mother's way of cooking.  She had classic recipes, things she had made him quite often over the course of his life.  He is a man that likes stability, and being able to count on something staying the same (aka- he does not like change).  His new wife, he quickly realized, is nothing like that.  In fact, I am just the opposite.  I have heard of people who eat the same thing for breakfast every morning.  Every. Morning.  Dude!  How is that possible?

     A recipe to me is a starting point.  It is suggestions by someone who knows what they are doing.  Cooking is an art (unlike baking, which is a science- and when I bake I do follow the recipe).  Everyone's taste buds are different.  For example, I like garlic.  A lot of garlic, actually.  Not everyone does though.

   
     Here is the recipe I started with yesterday, when I went to make dinner:  Acorn Squash Soup with Kale.  The picture at the top corner of the recipe is a bit misleading, if you ask me.  Here is what my soup looked like.

     First, I did not have any bacon (tragedy, I know).  So I skipped to step two, but I needed some fat to cook the onion in.  I had run out of butter.  I frantically searched the fridge for some form of animal fat, and lighted upon a few jars of chicken broth, which had a bit of fat layer on top of them.  I scooped that out, and used that to fry the onions in.

     Next came the kale.  The recipe called for 4 cups of acorn squash, I had 6, so I took the recipe amounts and multiplied them by 1.5, giving me 6 cups of acorn squash and 12 (!) cups of kale.  It says 8 cups of "finely chopped kale", right?  I read it over and over before I finally added the kale.  I decided against adding 12 cups (mostly because my kids were sick of bringing me in bowls and bowls full of kale leaves from the garden, just to have me tell them to go back and "fill 'er up again".  I am not sure if the author of the recipe meant 8 cups of kale before it was finely chopped or not, but my soup did not look like theirs, so I am assuming 8 cups of finely chopped kale was a bit more than what they used.

     Step three is where I made a mistake.  It clearly states "Add squash puree" and I assumed my nearly boiled to death squash would suffice.  I was wrong.  While it did not ruin the soup, I think if I had run it through the food processor the soup's texture would have been better.  I ended up taking a potato masher to the soup before I served it...it didn't really help.

     The recipe then calls for water.  Water?  Really?  Let me give you some advice.  If ever your recipe calls for water, no matter what you are making, stop and think, "Would chicken broth make it taste better?"  I bet 75% of the time you will answer yourself with a "HECK YEAH!"  (If you are a vegetarian, you might think vegetable stock.)  Thus I added 6 cups of chicken broth, in lieu of water. (I should have added 4.5 cups if I was following the recipe, but after adding 5- I do not like fractions, I decided it wasn't "soupy" enough.)

     After bring the soup to a boil I let it cool a bit and then tasted it.  It was alright, but I knew immediately it needed garlic.  Hence, I added half a head of garlic, about 2 tablespoons, minced, and then a lot of salt.  When I tasted it, it was perfect (except for the texture....again, I wish I would have blended it).

     Now, the really funny part about this whole thing is that if I was not writing a blog I would never have written any of this down.  I would not have measured the broth or the squash, and I would not have eye balled the garlic.  I do not measure things.  Which is why my husband, and now my children, tease me nearly every meal.  After eleven years of marriage my husband has finally come to expect recipes to differ from time to time, and not to get too attached to any one meal.  It will change, and be different next time.  Most of the time my changes improve the recipe.  (Though, I have had my disasters as well.)

     So, here is the recipe with my changes I made, plus the changes I will make for next time.  It was really tasty, and very inexpensive.  I was really pleased with how it turned out, but I think cheese would have made it!

Katie's Acorn Squash and Kale Soup

Things you will need:
2 tbsp. butter
1 large onion, diced
5 cups of kale, finely chopped
6 cups of pureed acorn squash (about 3 medium acorn squash)
2 tbsp. minced garlic
5 cups chicken broth
salt
cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Melt butter in soup pot.  Add diced onions and cook until tender.  Add kale and cook until soft.

2. Add pureed acorn squash and chicken broth.  Stir and bring to a boil.

3. Remove from heat and add salt and garlic.  Mix well, and serve with cheese sprinkled on top, or you could add the cheese after it is done boiling, and have a cheesy kale and acorn squash soup, the possibilities are endless! ;)

A Surprising Favorite

     One of my favorite things about Spring is my garden.  I usually plant at least eighteen square feet of lettuce, at least!  Once the lettuce has grown enough that it needs to be thinned the meals consisting of mostly salad begin.  We eat all kinds of salads, but then again we also tend to eat the same salad over and over again.  Yes, salad ends up being our go to meal when the schedule gets full and we are out and about all Summer.  This Spring we had snow on the ground well into May.  My lettuce did not get planted as soon as I would have liked.  This left me needing meal ideas.  Enter cabbage.

     While waiting for the lettuce to grow in I discovered the many advantages to using cabbage.  It is one of the cheapest vegetables you can buy.  It is on the clean fifteen list, so I do not have to buy it organic.  I also do not have to spend an a lot of time rinsing each leaf; simply peel off the outer leaves that need to go, and you are ready to shred.  Lastly, it is so crunchy.  I love how crunchy it is.

     It surprised me how much I liked Cabbage Salad (that is what we have named it).  I made it for a potluck today.  It was quick, easy, I had all the ingredients and it handles well (heat and traveling).  At the meal tonight a friend of mine told my daughter that she really liked it.  I was so glad to hear it because it almost seemed too easy, but it is a favorite of mine.  So, here is the recipe:

Cabbage Salad

Things you will need:
1 medium sized head of cabbage, shredded
6 large carrots, peeled and shredded
1 large onion, diced
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup white vinegar
salt to taste

Directions:
Toss all of ingredients together in a large bowl.  Serve.

     SEE!  Easy!  And if you really want a treat you can add 1/3 cup of honey to it as well, and then you have Coleslaw!  I usually make coleslaw from the left overs.  To make this recipe a complete meal sometimes I add sliced hard boiled eggs on top.  I also make egg salad to go with it sometimes, or we have even put cold shredded chicken on top.  No matter how I add to it, it always turns out yummy.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the "clean 15" and "dirty dozen".
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/health/the-dirty-dozen-and-clean-15-of-produce/616/

Sipping Once, Sipping Twice, Sipping Chicken Soup is NICE!

     Have you read the book Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak?  It is a family favorite in the Goshert household.  I read most of the page, but at the end of the page my kids pipe in, "Sipping once, sipping twice, sipping chicken soup with rice!"  Usually they are able to implore me to read it "just once more".

     In my post: The Delicious Side of GAPS I talked a little bit about the health benefits GAPS brought to our family.  The simple concept of drinking bone broth can make a huge impact on ones health.  In fact, a person does not even have to be on the GAPS Diet to reap the benefits of bone broth.  When ever I hear a friend or family member mention their family is sick I cannot keep myself from suggesting they make some chicken soup.  I actually grew up with my mother making chicken soup for people who were sick.  Back then, I thought it was a comfort food, and I could not understand why.  In all my historical fiction novels I love to read, the characters are always ladling broth down the throats of the invalid.  I am pretty sure they were not using bouillon cubes.

     Broth is really easy to make; take a bone and boil it in water.  Personally I like to take a whole chicken and boil it in a pot of water for an hour and a half (any longer than that and the meat gets dry).  I add lots of salt and crushed pepper corns, as well.  The oil that comes off the chicken skin makes the broth very tasty.  (When the chicken is finished cooking, you can even remove the skin and lay it out flat on a cookie sheet and broil it for a nice treat that we like to call CHICKEN BACON- add a little salt and garlic for a real treat!)  After I have removed the chew-able parts of the chicken from the bones, I boil the bones and non-chew-able parts of the chicken in the crock pot for an additional 24 hours.  If you did not partake in the chicken bacon, mentioned above, then I would add the skin to the crock pot as well.

     A quick warning if you are going to use beef bones.  Dr. Campbell-McBride says that chicken broth is very soothing to the gut, while other bone broths are more healing.  So, it is good to try other types of bones.  What I found was my family did not like the taste of the beef soup bones (the big thick bones with all the good for you marrow inside them).  Their systems did not respond very well to the very greasy broth either.  We did do pork bones with great success.  I have never tried fish bones or any other poultry, besides turkey.  I have not tried any wild game bones.

     On the GAPS Introduction Diet bone broth is supposed to be available at all times as a drink and to make into soups.  One of my favorite chicken soup recipes is loaded with garlic, onions and peppers to help scare off those cold viruses!

Chicken Soup with Rutabaga 

Things you will need:

1 whole chicken

4 large rutabaga,peeled and diced

1 small cabbage (or a handful of kale leaves), shredded

1 pound of peeled carrots (they taste better when you peel them), chopped or shredded

3 cups of minced onion

1 large red bell pepper, chopped

3 whole heads of garlic, peeled and minced

salt, to taste

pepper corns, crushed, to taste

Directions:

1. Place chicken in soup pot and cover with water.  Add salt and crushed pepper corns.  Boil for about an hour and a half, until chicken is cooked thoroughly.  (I usually start the chicken cooking and then do all my vegetable prep work.)  Remove chicken from pot and set aside to cool.

2. Add all the vegetables to the broth, and bring to a boil.  Cook until all vegetables are tender.

3. While vegetables are cooking remove the meat from the bones of the chicken.  Save the bones and skin for later.  Chop the meat into bite size pieces.  When the vegetables are done cooking, turn off the stove and add chicken (you really do not want to cook the meat any more than you have to, otherwise it gets really dry).

     If you are doing GAPS you may already know how tedious it can be to prep food.  Peeling garlic is one of the most tedious jobs in the kitchen, right up there with washing the pots and pans!  I have seen several tricks to peeling garlic.  My trick it to call in my 6, 8, and 10 year old and ask them to peel garlic.  I have seen people use mortar and pestles to slightly crush the garlic to make it easier to peel.  I have seen a huge man take two giant metal bowls, crush a head of garlic with his bare hand and toss it into one of the bowls- placing the other bowl on top as a lid, and then shake the bowls vigorously.  My mother likes to shake garlic in a glass jar with a metal lid.  I usually like to avoid as many dirty dishes as possible and crack the clove with my fingers, thus breaking the skin, and peel it (or have my kids do it).

     Chopping vegetables is a time consuming task.  I do not know what I would do with out my food processor.  I have changed recipes just so I could use my food processor on all my vegetables (some things do not fit well into food processors, so I will shredded them, or cut them differently so they will fit in).  For kale I will avoid the extra work of shredding by putting it in the food processor with the chopping blade.  I pulse it and get a good result.

     Part of cooking from scratch is just excepting that you are going to be in the kitchen a big chunk of the day.  If you can cook large portions of food you can have left overs, that helps keep dishes down and cooking time down.

Sauerkraut: Getting Ready to Start GAPS Introduction Diet

     Sauerkraut is a fermented vegetable, and it is as far as the Goshert family reaches in to the realms of fermented foods.  My husband and I agreed to do the diet, but we also both adamantly declared that we would not be eating vegetables that had sat in a jar fermenting for any length of time, besides sauerkraut that is.  (See, I told you I wasn't Super Woman.)

     The reason I am starting with sauerkraut is because the first lesson I learned on GAPS (the hard way) was sauerkraut takes five to seven days to finish fermenting.  The first time we started the diet I basically turned to the section describing each step of the diet and read down the list, making a shopping list and to do list, THE DAY WE STARTED THE DIET.  If you have done GAPS Intro diet, you know this is a costly mistake.  It cost us five extra days of nothing but soup.

     The process of making sauerkraut was quite daunting to me, in fact, when I have gone long stretches with out making it I will find myself feeling daunted once again.  But every time I suck it up and make it, I think to myself, afterwards, "Now that was not that hard, was it now?"

     I got the recipe from the GAPS Diet book by Dr. Campbell-McBride, but I have learned a few tricks as well.  Here is the process, in it's entirety.

Homemade Sauerkraut

Things you will need:
-large bowl
-knife
-cutting board
-food processor (optional)
-cabbage (any amount, in my pictures I used 1/3 of a head, because that is what I had)
-natural sea salt (we use Redmond Real Salt)
-filtered water

Directions:

1. Cut up the cabbage in to smaller sized pieces, if you plan to use a food processor.  I use the 2MM blade because it makes thinner slices and is easier and quicker to turn into sauerkraut.

2. Shred the cabbage with the food processor.  If you do not have a food processor you can use a knife.  Make sure to slice the cabbage as thin as possible.

3. Once all the cabbage is sliced, place it in a bowl.  (Make sure you use a nice big bowl to give yourself ample room to "knead" the cabbage into submission.)  Add  3 table spoons of salt for every medium sized cabbage.  I did a third of a cabbage, so I added 1 table spoon of salt.  I also added a third cup of filtered water.

4. Once you have everything in the bowl start to "knead" it and squeeze it.  Depending on how much cabbage you are doing at one time, you might even want to give yourself some leverage.  I frequently will stand on a stool when I do an entire large cabbage.  When I first started making sauerkraut it would take me a half hour of kneading to get it done.  Now, I do not mess around.  In the next picture you can see me squeezing the cabbage with all  my might.  When I first started I also did not really know what I was aiming for.  Now I know the texture, and it only took me seven minutes to make this batch (and that was with taking pictures added in).

The picture above is in the beginning, and the one below is after a few minutes of squeezing and kneading.

It becomes really juicy.  You can feel the cabbage start to give.  It is no longer ridged but more spongy.  I have found that adding as much water as I do does not hurt the process at all, but it helps the cabbage get to the spongy texture more quickly.

5. After it is nice and spongy and juicy put it into a jar (or a few jars).  Make sure to push the cabbage down to the bottom, making all the air come to the top.  After you have it all in, and pushed down, add more filtered water, leaving almost an inch of air at the top.  DO NOT OVER FILL, I have made this mistake.  As the cabbage ferments it will bubble and leak out of the jar.

6. Make sure to wipe the rim of the jar clean and put a lid on it.  Set it out of the way in a darker corner of your kitchen.  It will take 5 to 7 days to finish fermenting.  When it is done it will smell like sauerkraut.  Place it in the fridge to use as needed.

     See, I told you it would be easy.  Of course your first time may be daunting, just like mine.  I strongly suggest making sauerkraut BEFORE you start the diet.  Having it ready and on hand will help alleviate stress.  GAPS Diet calls for fermented juices in soups and broths.  It is very healthy and has lots of good bacteria, minerals and vitamins.  It is tasty with meats (particularly bratwurst and sausages).

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that air pressure will build up, and every other day or so you should open the lid to let out some of the pressure.  Also, I forgot to mention that all the cabbage needs to be submerged under liquid, otherwise it will rot, not ferment.  I just checked on this today, my batch I made, and it was ready.  I put it in the fridge today.

The Delicious Side of GAPS

     I have been doing GAPS for three years.  It has not been an easy road, but the benefits have been amazing.  So amazing, in fact, that I have to restrain myself from suggesting it to every person I meet who even has a slight health issue.

     I have been thinking about starting a blog for a long time now.  I have experienced so much and learned so much that it almost feels greedy not to share my experiences and knowledge with others.  I have also doubted my self, and what I really have to offer.  I have not done GAPS perfectly.  I have not even done it exclusively for the whole three years.  There have been many bumps on my GAPS journey.

     GAPS Diet stands for Gut And Psychology Syndrome Diet.  If you read the book and/or search online you will find big words and phrases describing this strange diet.  In the beginning I was leery of this diet.  The ideas presented in Dr. Campbell-McBride's books are strange and a bit confusing.  If I had not promised myself that I would try this diet out, for the sake of my youngest son, no matter how hard it was, I probably would not have made it this far.  But I am not Super Woman.  I do not have this diet down pat.  We do not even do all the things Dr. Campbell-McBride says to do in the book.  But I did read the book, and I was convinced that I needed to try the diet.

     I am starting this blog to help other mothers out there, like me, who have kids who are sick.  I am taking a leap of faith, I am putting myself out there and encouraging others to read the Gut and Psychology Syndrome book by Dr. Campbell-McBride, to make a life style change for good for their families and themselves.  And I am also here to say that you do not have to eat fermented vegetables every meal to heal your gut.  While doing the GAPS Diet is a big step, if does not have to happen all at once.  You can take baby steps, and you can learn to love different foods.  You can even learn to cook, like me!  I am not Super Woman, and I do not have all the answers, but I do have a crazy cool story!

My GAPS Story

     Our story begins with my youngest son's first birthday.  I made him a Betty Crocker boxed chocolate cake in the shape of a dinosaur with neon green frosting and with it we served chocolate ice cream.  My mother loaded him up with a heaping plate.  He was happy and content, but that night turned into one of the worst nights of my entire life.  He was in some sort of comma that would only be broken by agonizing screams every hour or so.  He would not open his eyes, he just screamed, and then fell back to sleep.  If I had been more awake I might have taken him to the hospital, but instead I held him and slept while he slept, and tried to calm him when he began to scream.  The next day I beat myself up for hours over my cake and ice cream flavor choices.  I decided that it had to be the chocolate, and we started avoiding chocolate.  Soon after (with no connection to the birthday cake incident) we made the switch to cloth diapers.  All the blog articles I read made it sound so easy.  I was excited to have my new cute gDiapers.  It was not long before I realized that cloth diapers were not easy, not for my one year old.  He never had a normal poop.  He had puddles of poop.  Not shortly after that I met a woman who had a wheat and dairy allergy.  I myself discovered I was having PMS like symptoms all the time, and had been for months.  I decided to try not eating wheat or dairy and see if I had an allergy.  Within a few days I felt myself again, and I was so happy.  I introduced wheat again to see if it might just be the dairy, with success.  I then decided to see if my son might have similar issues.  I took him off wheat and dairy with immediate results.  About a week later he accidentally got a hold of some cheerios at church and later had a bloody stool.  I knew then that this was a big deal.

     Next my husband and I moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with our (then) three children.  Our son was a peanut, really little for his age.  He was now two years old, and although he was active and happy, he was small and quite sickly (despite the food changes).  Because he was so sickly I never got around to having him immunized; it just never seemed like he was healthy enough.  A few months after we settled in to our new home I found a doctor who I had heard really good things about with regards to allergies.  We visited her and that is where we first learned about the GAPS Diet.  She strongly encouraged me to try it, saying that his allergies would only get worse, soon he would grow allergic to rice, soy and maybe eggs.  His problem was not a true allergy, but his gut was messed up.  This made me think back to his birth.  I had tested positive for Strep B before I gave birth, and went in once my contractions started to get two doses of antibiotics in before he was born.  I also thought about how he had not been immunized, and the doctor cautioned against it, saying his gut was not healthy enough.

     It took a few months for me to read the book.  I learned so much, and I was scared and over whelmed.  But I knew it was what we needed to try.  Then I picked a day to start the Intro Diet, and started using up the foods we would not be able to eat on the diet.  Looking back I did a lot of things I would suggest people NOT do when they start the diet.  But that is kind of how I roll, learning what NOT to do the hard way.  One example of this is the camping trip we took a week before we started the diet.  I knew we would not be able to eat all the wonderful camping comfort foods after the diet started, so we loaded up on orange pop and Cheetos!  I shake my head in utter amazement at myself now, exactly three years later.

     So, three years later, after starting the diet on July 28, 2011, I am now the mother of four.  I have survived long road trips, moving, renovating a very old house (and living out of a camper for the first 5 months of it) and church potlucks, all while doing GAPS.  And like I said before, we have not always done it perfectly, but we have done it.  The health benefits I have seen astound me.  Not only are my sons food allergies gone, but so are mine, and my husbands (we later found out that he had the same allergies as my son). Another benefit we have seen is general healthiness of the whole family.  Before we tried GAPS our kids were sick all winter.  They had continual runny noses and it was nasty thick green snot.  Now they get the sniffles every now and then.  Before we started the diet my medicine cabinet was full of all kinds of medicine.  After the diet it I watched as my medicines expired and I had to throw them away, never needing to replace them.  But the coolest benefit of all was when my kids stopped being picky eaters.  My oldest son would throw up when ever he thought a potato was in his mouth.  No french fries or tatter tots for him.  He would not touch a tomato.  Now he eats beets and lima beans.  He begs for tomatoes in his soups and salads.

The Delicious Side of GAPS
   
     GAPS is a lot of work, especially in the beginning.  I have learned a lot of tricks to doing GAPS on the go, and making meals that are quick but yummy.  I have also learned how to make up recipes from the ingredients I have on hand.  But the biggest thing I have learned while on GAPS is it is delicious.  The benefits I mentioned earlier do not have to come at a price to taste.  There are lots of wonderful things you can eat on GAPS, it just takes some time to learn how.

     I hope you have been encouraged by this.  I am eager to share recipes and tips with you in this blog.  I will be starting with the intro diet, because I think it is a big part of healing the gut.  I will actually be going back to the intro diet due to a miscarriage I had three months ago.  I was thirteen weeks along, and I had been having a horrible time keeping food down, and I stopped GAPS all together.  After the miscarriage I ate horribly, just trying to survive.  Now I am eager to get my body back to one hundred percent.

     Please join me for the rest of our GAPS journey.  I look forward to sharing with you and being a source of encouragement to you.  You can do it.  And you will be so happy that you did!