Keep it Real

Probiotic Rich Dinners

I recently tried out the the Nourishing Traditions recipe for lacto fermented cherry chutney.  It has a nice salty sweet flavor and I thought it might be a good fit with a mild fish like mahi mahi.  I was right!  This fish was lightly cooked in cultured butter, sea salt, pepper, and fresh parsley and rosemary.  The salad is topped with my earlier mentioned kombucha dressing.  Delish!

By now it's easy to see that once you have some lacto fermented vegetables, fruits, and condiments on hand, it is so easy to add them quickly to any meal! 

Unfortunately, I'm still working on the kids accepting the fermented foods.  This is a perfect example - look at that fresh plate of vegetables and a hard boiled pastured egg.  A little bowl of ranch dressing that I made with raw soft cheese for dipping on the side.  He normally would eat the bottled ranch dressing.  I thought this was a good substitute.  Obviously not.  He took one teeny tiny bite and wouldn't touch it again. Sigh....

 
 

Creamy Creaminess

I was fortunate enough to find a source of local, pastured, raw cream at a great price.  So I bought a gallon and a half!  At this point I was also out of raw milk that I make my kefir with.  So I decided to try out some kefir cream.  To a quart of raw cream I added two tablespoons of kefir grains and let that sit for 24-36 hours.  Strained it and put it back in the fridge.  After it was completely chilled I had this:

 

Look how thick and creamy that is!  The taste is very mild, like a sour cream or yogurt.  I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but I'm thinking it will be several things.  Used as sour cream, made into a creamy dressing, on top of fruit, ect.  Before I did this I had googled 'kefir cream' and came up with nearly nothing. I'm wondering if people don't do this often?  Maybe because raw cream is harder to come by and if people do then they use it for butter or ice cream.  I'm also wondering about making cheese out of raw cream. Is there whey in the cream? Can you add cultures and rennet to straight cream and get some type of cheese? I guess if I can get more I'll experiment with this.

Creamy rice pudding.  This is definitely a treat!  Here's how I made this.  Soak 1 cup of short grain brown rice in warm water and a bit of ACV for 24 hours.  Strain and rinse.  Cook the rice in a can of organic full fat coconut milk, the inside scrapings of a vanilla bean and 1/4 cup of raw honey.  I had to cook this a long time and add water several times to keep it liquid enough to cook down.  It ended up kind of caramelizing into a thick brown consistency.  Once the rice was done enough I mixed up 3 pastured eggs, 1/2 cup of cream and cinnamon.  Mix this well and slowly drizzle into the cooked rice stirring it in as you pour.  Keep the rice on low heat and continue to cook and stir until it is fully combined and creamy.  Pour into individual dishes (I used four ramekins) and chill throughly.  Yum!!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kops site!  

Soaked Spice cake with a Nutty Raisin topping

Raw milk kefir has been part of my life for exactly a year now.  I've kept a constant supply going and always find a way to use it.  Occasionally I'll drink a glass plain, but other than that, it's made into smoothies, cheese, dressings, baked goods, ect.  There is about a quart brewing all the time.  I strive to have no more than a half gallon on hand at a time.  If it gets to be more than that, then that means we are not consuming enough.  

I found myself with some extra kefir so I decided to soak some whole wheat flour and oats in it for some type of baked good. You'll lose some of the probiotic benefits by baking with the kefir, but it is still highly nutritious.  What resulted was a delicious, lightly sweet, moist cake.  I almost want to call it a 'coffee cake'.  It would make a nice brunch addition or to bring to a gathering.

 

The night before you want to bake the cake mix together the flour, oats, and kefir.  Stir well to make sure all the oats and flour are wet.  Cover and leave in a warm spot in your kitchen.  The soaking process will reduce the phytic acid and make the nutrients more available.

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups oats

2 cups kefir

The next day preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 baking dish with butter or coconut oil.  In a big bowl mash a ripe banana and mix in the eggs, molasses, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.  Mix with a whisk until all ingredients are fully incorporated.  Then add the soaked flour mixture all at once.  Mix with a wooden spoon until all you can see are lumps of dough.  At this point it's better to put down the spoon and use a clean hand to squish all the dough pieces.  You want to make sure no lumps from the soaking dough are left.  Once it's well mixed pour it into the baking dish.

1 ripe mashed banana

2 large pastured eggs

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

This topping makes the cake!  Mix all the ingredients together and spread evenly over the unbaked cake.

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup organic raisins 

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla 

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.  It smells amazing baking in the oven! ;)

** I thought this delightful cake was wonderful and had just the right amount of sweetness.  My husband on the other hand felt it wasn't sweet enough.  If you would like a sweeter cake feel free to add a cup of any natural sweetener you choose to the mix.**

I would love to hear from any of you who might try this recipe!  Let me know how it turns out for you. 

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

Probiotic Rich Lunches

Moving onto probiotic foods at lunch time.  Here is a fresh herb soft raw cheese.  Again, I used various chopped fresh herbs from my garden, fresh pressed garlic, and some sea salt.  Very delicious!  I actually put the smaller jar in the freezer to save for some chilly months when fresh cheese and herbs aren't so bountiful.

I used the cheese in this pita sandwich.  Homemade sourdough pita bread, spinach from my garden, hard boiled pastured egg, raw cheese and a side of fermented spicy pickles.  Perfect lunch.

 

Here's another nutrient dense lunch - dark greens and various vegetables freshly picked from my garden, raw cheddar cheese (store bought), cold pastured chicken, and homemade ranch dressing.  This is made from raw milk kefir cheese, raw cream, and spices.  Yum!

 

Tis the season for lots of greens and salads, so here is another salad dressing idea with probiotic benefits. I've been drinking quite a bit of home brewed kombucha lately.  I let some of it ferment for a long time to get 'kombucha vinegar'.  Then I mix the vinegar with organic olive oil, fresh herbs and salt and pepper. Instant healthy salad dressing!

    

Don't forget that you can add lacto fermented vegetables to almost any meal.  And they last a really long time!  Now is the best time to start fermenting some in season produce.  I'm still eating stuff from last summer.  Fresh salads aren't always available so fermented veggies are a great way to get those good bacteria in during the cooler months.

This post is part of Wardeh's 'Probiotics at Every Meal' lunch post and 'Pennywise Platter Thursday' at Nourishing Gourmet.

Probiotic Rich Breakfasts

Once you start making your own fresh raw foods it's not hard to incorporate them into every meal. Here are a few ways that I've added probiotic rich foods into my breakfasts.

Smoothies - raw milk kefir lends itself very well into all kinds of fruit smoothies.  This one has milk kefir, banana, frozen strawberries, pastured egg yolk, coconut oil, raw honey, and a bit of fresh orange mint.

 

How about replacing regular fruit juice with water kefir?  This water kefir is flavored with whole organic grape juice and has all the benefits of those lovely probiotics.

 

This was in my last post, but totally worth repeating because it's my usual breakfast.  Eggs cooked in coconut oil with a side of whatever lacto fermented vegetables I have on hand.  This one is purple cabbage.

 

Since raw milk is plentiful right now I've been making quite a bit of soft raw cheese.  This was an experiment that happily turned out quite yummy!  I usually make a savory type of herbed cheese, but wanted something a little sweeter for a morning toast.  I blended raw cow milk soft cheese, raw cream, raw local honey, and fresh pineapple mint from my garden.  What a minty sweet treat!

  

Spread it upon sourdough english muffins for a delicious breakfast!

 

Of course these are just a few suggestions.  There are endless ways to to add cultured and fermented foods to your breakfasts.

To see lots of other probiotic rich breakfasts check out GNOWFGLINS  post on Probiotics at Every Meal.

   

Tuesday Twister ~ July 6th

Lately I've really been concentrating on getting some type of fermented, highly probiotic and nutritious food along with each meal.  It's really not hard to do when I work on having a constant supply of lacto fermented vegetables, raw soft cheese, milk kefir, kombucha, and water kefir.  Here are a few examples.

This was absolutely delicious!  Soaked brown rice cooked in bone broth topped with sauteed various greens and radishes and pastured eggs cooked in coconut oil.  Along side it a serving of fermented kim chi pickles.  This was Tim's plate, and he wasn't super thrilled with the combo.  I had one egg, greens and a small bit of rice with the pickles.  I LOVED it and will make small portions for myself.  It's an easy breakfast when you have everything on hand.

 

Here's a grain free option.  This is a very usual breakfast for me.  Sauteed greens with an egg on top, side of purple lacto fermented cabbage, and some avocado.  Super delicious and filling.  Remember when going out to breakfast was a treat??  It really isn't anymore.  Not when I can make myself stuff like this at home. 
 

Dinner the other night.  Wild caught local salmon baked with coconut milk and fresh herbs, beets sauteed in butter and sea salt and a fresh greens salad with kefir ranch dressing.  Yum!

 

We also went berry picking last weekend.  I can't believe how fortunate we were to find a local organic strawberry farm!!  Strawberries are part of the dirty dozen I always feel guilty for buying the non organic ones, but they are just so hard to resist!  Well we didn't have to resist these at 1.50 per lb!  We picked 30 lbs and I brought them home to clean and freeze.

Next was cherries.  Oh cherries, how I love you so.  18 lbs.  I have several gallon bags in my freezer and I hope to get more in there before the short season is over.

This post is happily part of Tuesday Twister at GNOWFGLINS.