Sauces: Day 3

Ok, so we have covered Mayo (Link), Ranch Dressing (link  ) and now today Chimichurri sauce!
We used this on Turkey Meatballs the other night, yummy and fresh and bright!

Chimichurri Sauce
½ cup Peas (cooked from frozen fine)
½ cup cilantro leaves (torn from 1 bunch, some stems ok)
¾ cup olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
3 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

2 drops Young Living Lime oil or Zest of 1 lime

Get out your Food processor for this one. Place your peas/Cilantro and spices in first, then add your oil and vinegar. Pulse 10-15 times, then turn it on for 30 seconds or so. You want it to be incorporated but not completely smooth.

Use with Chicken/Turkey/Steak or over your veggies!

Sauces: Part 2

Ok, yesterday homemade mayo, today homemade Ranch....tomorrow The World, or maybe a day off. Back with another awesome sauce on Monday ;)

Basic Ranch:
2/3 cup avocado oil or light olive oil 
1 room temperature egg (IMPORTANT)
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 tbsp dried herbs or handful chopped fresh herbs (I use Dill, Cilantro and Parsley)
2 Tbsp full fat canned coconut milk or coconut cream

Put all ingredients in a 16oz Wide mouth ball jar, starting with herbs and working up the list. Use your immersion blender and blend it all together. After you have made it into a dressing add the 2Tbsp of Coconut milk. 

Ta-da- Serve on your salad or as a dipping sauce!

I have been missing out!

Ok ya'll, we are in the thick of the Whole30 over here! Day 12 over here, I am actually feeling really good, my clothes are fitting better, and I feel more calm. All good things!

Not gonna lie, Tuesday night I doula'd (did I just make up a word? was a doula....) for a friend, Wednesday night when it was bedtime I REALLY wanted some dessert. Some serious cravings. Part of Whole30 is to identify triggers, well I could tell that me being tired definitely made my sweet tooth come out. Good to know going forward.

What this post is really about is SAUCES and how awesome homemade sauces are. Seriously, I have been missing out. Homemade mayo- amazing. Homemade ranch- does not even compare to store bought, Chimmichurri....Red Pepper sauce, yep all amazing.

So, I'm going to share some of my favorite Whole30 approved sauces over the next few days!

Today we are going to go with Basic Mayo

It Starts With Food Basic Mayo:
 1-1/4 cup of light olive oil
 1 egg (room temp, this is important!)
 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 1/2 to 1 lemon, juiced 

Use an immersion blender (if you don't have one, get one, for real). Add all ingredients to a wide mouth 16oz ball jar. Make SURE your egg is room temp, to do it quickly place in warm water for a few minutes. Put your immersion blender in the bottom, turn on and in about 30 seconds you have delicious home made mayo!

If you want to change it up, add some garlic or onion powder, cilantro, jalepeno...there are a ton of options!

Tomorrow, come back for Ranch dressing!

An Attempt at Homemade Churro's

Well for Cinco de Mayo we had Pollo Asado, brown rice, a salad and I made Churro's.
Boy was this quite the adventure.

It was really simple to make the dough.

I used this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 2 Tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup white flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1/2 to 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, depending on taste

Preheat 1 1/2 to 2 inches of vegetable (I used canola) oil in a 10 to 12 inch frying pan to 375 degrees F. note to self: buy a candy thermometer otherwise you will have no idea what 375* of hot oil looks like. This will help you in the future. Also, buy a meat tenderizer. That is all

In a sauce pan ( I used a 1.5 qt one but it called for a 3 qt one, mine was in use for the rice for dinner) add the water, brown sugar, salt, and butter and heat to a good boil. Remove from the heat and add the flour. Stir until well blended.

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and vanilla together and then add this to the pan with the flour mixture. Make sure that the egg gets all combined into the dough.

Put your dough in your decorator (think frosting decorator, if you don't have one you could always cut the tip of a plastic baggy off and squeeze from there, just be very careful) and attach a star tip.

Test your oil by placing a small amount of dough in it. The dough should bubble up right away or that means the oil is not hot enough, now if you were like me, yours bubbled and got dark right away which means your oil is too hot. Not hot enough oil = sogginess, Too hot oil = cooked on outside, NOT cooked on the inside.

Once the oil is hot enough, squeeze some dough (with decorator) into the oil about 4 inches long. Use your finger to release the dough from the decorator, just be careful because you are mighty close to the hot oil, you don't want your finger to get in on the frying action.

You should be able to cook 3- 5 churros at a time. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, turning once during the frying process.

Remove the churros with the slotted spoon and place them on a paper towel-covered plate.

I found it easiest while one batch was cooking to roll the last cooked batch in cinnamon and sugar. Then repeat.

So since apparently I let my oil get too hot and it doesn't cool down very quickly I had to do some fast thinking, so I put on a smaller tip from my decorator and used that, since they were thinner, they cooked faster and thus I didn't have a crispy outside and raw inside. Then once it got cool enough I switched back.

I told hubby the ones that were a different shape were American-ized Churro's since I am clearly not Mexican and this just proved it.

None-the-less they were still good! But very time consuming, all frying is I think!

Tomorrow look for a Buttermilk Pie recipe!

Have a great day and God Bless!

Homemade Flour Tortillas- A Comparison

So yesterday, I decided I wanted to make some homemade flour tortillas for dinner. I then set off to find a recipe. A friend of mine, Liz sent me hers and I found THIS one on Homesick Texan.

I couldn't decide which to make so I decided to do both and hubby (the mexican food lover) and I would weigh in.

Recipe 1-Liz's
Ingredients
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoons lard, butter, canola or other neutral oil
about 1/2 C warm water, plus more as needed.


Recipe 2
Ingredients
Texas Flour Tortillas (adapted from The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison)
Ingredients:
Two cups of all-purpose flour (can make them whole wheat by substituting one cup of whole-wheat flour for white flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
3/4 cups of warm milk

Here is how it went.

First in my Kitchen aid stand mixer I put the ingredients for recipe #1, let it form into a ball and knead for a few minutes until it was somewhat elastic-y (nope, that isn't a word but I am going to use it)

I put the dough ball into a bowl (the blue one).

Then I repeated this process with the ingredients for recipe #2. That went into the silver bowl.

I covered them both with a towel and let rest for a good 30ish minutes (it should be at least 20).

Then I took the dough ball out onto a floured surface and decided that they felt like the needed more kneading (that's a mouthful!) I kneaded both balls until they were where I thought they should be.

Then I separated them into 8 pieces each and placed them on a plate and covered with a towel to rest again for another 20ish minutes (should be at least 10). I put the plates on their corresponding bowls just to keep them straight. As you can see Recipe #2 has larger dough balls because it had more flour- though both recipes said they made 8, so that is what I stuck to.
After they had rested I started with the blue bowl because they had been first all along and I wanted to be fair with resting time.

I took one ball at a time and took it into my hands, starting in the middle I pressed it into an evenly flat disc and placed it on a floured surface. Then I flattened the rest of the way making it as even as possible.
Then I took a rolling pin and rolled it out THIN and they rolled out very easily. (even though my rolling skills are sub par and not all of them came out looking like perfectly round circles) I did this for all 16 balls.

I had Recipe #2 in the lead, because it had felt better while kneading. After rolling I started to think perhaps they were about even and maybe #1 had a slight edge because it rolled out nicer.

At this point I heated a non-stick skillet (because I don't have a cast-iron one, but if you are cooler than I am use that) and I heated it over medium/medium-high heat (I found a 7 on my stove worked well).

I cooked 1 tortilla from #1 - for about 1.5-2 minutes on each side (I flipped the first time when nice bubbles started to appear)- I then tore off 1/4 for myself and 1/4 for hubby- took it to him and interrupted his practice time at the piano and had him try it. He said they were great!

So I went back and cooked 1 tortilla from #2- same thing about 1.5-2 minutes each side (this one didn't show bubbles)

I then interrupted hubby again and said ok tell me which one you like better. He said he didn't really notice a difference so I brought him another piece of #1 and had him compare that way.

His thoughts (and I came to similar conclusions)
#1- thinner and not as chewy
#2- thicker, a little softer and chewy

He chose #1 as did I. We had some vegetarian taco's for dinner with these. They were great!

#2 was very good as well- they tasted almost exactly the same but the thickness of the 2nd tortilla made it kind of bready (which made it great for eating with some butter later (yum) ) but for mexican food we liked the thinner variety.

#1 on Left #2 on Right

As you can see #1 looks thinner and a little more crispy whereas #2 looks thicker, softer and more bready.

You can keep these stored in a plastic bag or tinfoil for a few days in the fridge.

Depending on your "likes" for Mexican food either tortilla is a good option but in our house we will definitely make #1 again!

Have a great day and God Bless!

12 Foods to Buy Organic/ 15 Foods Not to

The Daily Green put an article up called "The New Dirty Dozen: 12 foods to eat Organic"

They also put up "The Clean 15: Foods you don't have to buy Organic"

As it stands now we don't buy much Organic, but I may have to look into some of them that are on the Dirty Dozen with as many pesticides as they test for!

Have a great day and God Bless!

Food Inc. Yikes!

Well can I tell you what I did last night?

Hubby was at the Diamondbacks game with a friend so after I put Lucy girl down for bed I popped a bag of popcorn, grabbed a beer and sat down to watch Food Inc. on my laptop via PBS (thank you very much PBS).


I had wanted to see this for quite some time but just hadn't gotten around to it, the Library didn't have it and I just never got around to renting it. I'm glad that I've seen it now.

I'd say as a whole we are fairly conscience about the food decisions we make, but I have to say I will likely be more so after seeing this movie.

Here are some of my thoughts...you don't have to agree, but I'm going to put them out there.

***Since it is so hard to find good research confirming or denying the claims of the movie that come from impartial sources; know that much of this is coming from Food Inc.***

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)- We decided close to a year ago to try to not buy HFCS containing products. THIS IS SO HARD! HFCS is in SO many things. Also, companies try to get around people avoiding their product by only having Corn Syrup rather that HFCS. We also try to stay away from these.
Next time you are in your normal grocery store (not health food store) try to find a brand of Raisin Bran that does not have HFCS or Corn Syrup, I've found it impossible.

This is not to say that I don't have it every once in a while (soda, etc) but as a whole the decisions we make do not include HFCS.

Sign a petition to get Congress to tax foods/beverages that contain HFCS to make ones that do not contain it more affordable HERE.

Soy- We also try to avoid Soy as much as possible, but again it is in SO many things you can buy at the grocery store. There have been numerous studies over the years saying that Soy may not be as good for us as we first believed. Again due to the fact that there are varying opinions, I urge you to check it out for yourself.

In the movie it talked about one particular company (which I will not name purely because thought I'm just a minuscule blogger, I don't want them after me) who has patented a particular type of soybean (that is Genetically Modified) and that is now close to 90% of soy on the market. WHOA!

Who knew you could patent food. Surely I didn't.

Meat/Poultry/Fish-I have to tell you I'm a meat eater. I like meat, I don't believe I could give it up. I like it, a lot. But, I have to tell you I was pretty disgusted to learn that there are hardly any farms that allow their cattle, poultry, hogs etc to eat anything but corn.

The conditions that chickens, cattle and hogs are subjected to is frankly, gross.

One company in the movie has made an ammonia based food additive to be added to hamburger to help stop the spread of things like E. Coli. Ammonia?

Food Inc. said if you allowed a cow to eat grass instead of corn for 5 days they would shed 80% of the E. Coli in their bodies....no ammonia needed there.

Also, Farm raised Tilapia/Salmon is now being fed corn! *Scratches head, a fish eating corn, hmmm*

In the film it talked about how corn is subsidized by the government, it costs less for meat companies to purchase corn than it does for farmer's to grow it due to the subsidization. Perhaps I'm a bit old school but I can't fathom why we are subsidizing this? *Bites tongue*

I will say after seeing this movie there will be certain companies I will not be supporting, Sprouts will be getting much more of my business when it comes to meat/poultry/fish.



My heart broke and I broke down in tears when the movie told the story of the 2.5 year old boy who died of a certain strain of E. Coli after eating an infected hamburger. He died 12 days later. His mother is now an advocate of regulating plants and sanctioning them/shutting them down if they continually fail safety standard testing. Support Kevin's Law HERE.

I could go on and on, but, I won't. Go back up to the top of the page and click on Food Inc. and watch it for yourself.

Here are some things you can do!
1. Buy Local /support Famer's Markets
2. Buy what is in season (Clicky)
3. Choose foods without HFCS/Soy
4. Buy Grass fed Beef/ Cage free Eggs
5. Pay more attention to what you put in your bodies, God only gave us one and he told us it is our Temple, take care of it.

Have a great day and God Bless!

Bountiful Baskets

Here is one way you can:
1. Eat healthy
2. Save Money
3. Save yourself a trip to the store!
4. Try foods you wouldn't normally try
5. Support local or small farms

You can order a basket from Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op!
I've been wanting to do this for a while now but somehow when they open up ordering in AZ from Tuesday-Wednesday I could never seem to remember. But this week I did.

How it works is you go to their website on the days that they open ordering for your state (AZ is Tuesday-Wednesday).
You place your basket order and anything else you would like, sometimes they sell bread, Italian packs, Mexican packs etc.
Then you choose where you want to pick it up (In AZ it is on Saturdays) They are almost always at a local park.
On that day you go at the time they say and you pick up your basket(s) of yummy produce!

This is what I got on Saturday!

I received for $19.50 (since it was my first basket, it is usually $16.50)
2 heads Romaine Lettuce
1 pint Grape Tomatoes
2 lbs of Carrots
6 Bananas
1 Pineapple
2 Packages Blackberries
1 Melon (I'm not sure what kind yet)
1 Package Mushrooms
3 Crowns of Broccoli
A few lbs of Red Potatoes
2 Bunches Swiss Chard

That's a lot of food- I'm trying to decide whether it would cost me that much at sprouts and I think it is about equal. The nice thing is I'm supporting local/small farms which I love AND I get to try new foods. Be sure to check out TOMORROW'S post for a Swiss Chard Recipe!

Bonus is all of these fruit/vegetables look amazing! We had some Blackberries and Romaine on Saturday and they were delicious.

So if you live in Utah, Arizona, Idaho or Nevada (I believe) check out Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op at the link below. If you live in another state, Google Food Co-ops and see if there is anything similar for you to try out.

It will be healthy for you and your family and it will save you some money. Plus, you are supporting US (and Mexican) farms!

This is their website Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op
You can also check out their Facebook Page

Have a great day and God Bless!