Quinoa and Corn Pasta with Pesto and Lamb Sausage

Quinoa and corn pasta is a yummy non-gluten pasta. It's good to branch out from the standard wheat or semolina (refined white flour) pasta . Read my posts here and here. Also, quinoa contains more protein than rice.

I used my standard pesto sauce and then sprinkle about a cup of my mystery leafy green on top that I bought at the farmer's market. I've got to find out the name of it next time that I go. I like to use spinach in this same fashion but enjoyed the flavor of this mystery green better. Mikey seemed to really like it too. It's a good habit to sprinkle something green on pasta; otherwise, pasta dinner can sometimes lack in the vegetable department.

And finally, we grilled up one lamb sausage and put a couple bites on each plate. For not planning this meal at all, I thought that it turned out nicely. I think a little feta cheese and/or olives would have made it fabulous!

Cooking with Lard (Bacon Fat)

From what I've read in Michael Pollen's book, "In the Defense of Food," and Sally Fallon's book, "Nourishing Traditions," among others, the main point that I am hearing over and over is to eat like we did before huge processing plants started making our food. For example, stop eating Cheese Puffs and go back to eating nutritious lard!

Politically Correct Nutrition is based on the assumption that we should reduce our intake of fats, particularly saturated fats from animal sources. Fats from animal sources also contain cholesterol, presented as the twin villain of the civilized diet. (Fallon)

My breast milk contains more cholesterol than almost any other food. It also contains over 50 percent of its calories as fat, much of it saturated fat. And remember that in earlier days, woman breastfed their children until they were much older. Nature seems to think that both cholesterol and saturated fat are essential for growth in babies and children.

There are recent studies coming out to contradict the whole gag reflex when it comes to lard and other fats, read In the "Defense of Food" for more information. We just need to remember to eat it in real food not junk food. This isn't a free ticket to pig out on Snicker Bars.

Lard contains omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids plus Vitamin D. If Mikey doesn't want to eat meat and only wants his bread, I dip his bread in the meat drippings and he's getting a ton of vital nutrients without eating the meat. It's a win, win!

So, how do I cook with lard? There's a way to preserve lard for storing beyond under the sink, read here. Personally, I haven't made that jump yet but I have changed the way that I think about lard and use it to my advantage. Cooking with bacon fat only needs a slight change in the cooking process. It just means that when I am cooking bacon, I use the bacon fat instead of another choice of oil from the pantry like olive oil, butter, or coconut oil.

When I cook bacon like I did for my family's pizza lunch today, I use a tablespoon of the bacon fat for the onions and another tablespoon for the greens. So the idea is that since I am cooking bacon and it is producing a natural cooking oil while it cooks, I don't need to use my other oils.

First, I stick the bacon in a pan to pan fry it. Then I chop the onions and wash and chop the greens. By now there's some grease in the pan from the bacon, and so I can use a tablespoon to cook the onions and greens in a separate fry pan. I cook the onions for about five minutes and then add the greens. I season the greens with a little more bacon fat and cook until wilted. Then I add them to the pizza.

I discard the rest of the bacon fat into a jar under the sink to later toss in the trash. From my readings, meat fat goes rancid so I'll make sure to store it the right way if I want to start saving it for a later date. I also don't put bacon juice down the kitchen sink because it could harden in the pipes.

Fish and Pigs and Chicken, Oh My!

I didn't know this: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/27/123228/109

Excerpt from article linked above:

Each year we feed 14 million tons of wild-caught fish (including anchovies, sardines, mackerel, and herring) to pigs and chickens around the globe. That amounts to 17 percent of all the wild fish we catch. Pigs and chickens eat double the amount of fish that Japan consumes annually and six times more seafood than the entire U.S. population eats each year.



What are these pigs and chickens paying per pound for their fish? I can barely afford a single .4 lb. fillet a week!

Chicken Salad with No Mayonnaise

Most weeks I cook a whole chicken. It's an affordable way to eat chicken and it's great to have the leftover meat for things like this chicken salad. And yes, chicken salad can still be nice and moist without mayonnaise!

4-6 cups shredded chicken
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 head of lettuce
1 onion or two shallot cloves
1 tablespoon butter
1 tomato

Salad Dressing
1 tablespoon pesto (optional)
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

I strip all the leftover meat off the bones and put it into a bowl. I put the bones into a pot and set aside to make chicken broth. Mix the canola oil, salt, and lemon juice in with chicken. I want to taste the lemon juice when I eat a sample of the chicken.

Then I chop the onion or shallot and cook it on medium heat for about 10 minutes. I want the onion soft and brown but not burnt.

While the onion is cooking, I clean a head of lettuce and put about half of it in with the chicken. I save the rest for a quick salad later in the week like this one here. I chop the tomato and add it to the chicken. And finally, I make the salad dressing. I could really do any type of salad dressing but I like to use my homemade pesto if there is some already made in the fridge. The salad dressing should be more on the olive oil side of taste rather than the vinegar side because of the chicken. Sometimes I need to drizzle more olive oil over the top of the salad. I also mix in extra salt at the end if it isn't salty enough. This salad needs more of a salty taste than a typical salad without chicken.

And then I stir in my caramelized onions and the salad is done.

Mary's Free Range Chickens

I rarely post about meat. But my family does eat meat. I usually shop for meat once a week. I buy a whole chicken (cut up in pieces), fish, and sometimes bacon or sausage. I have toured around the city to the different places that I list here, but I haven't fallen in love with any one store (that sales meat) or brand until now. I am really enjoying Mary's Free Range Chicken. These chickens are so moist and juicy. With each sitting I find myself saying, "Yum, this chicken is good!" If I were a cat, I'd purr as I ate it. I've eaten organic meat exclusively for the past two years but it wasn't until Mary's Chicken that I felt like I was back in the French Alps. (The meat in France is noticeably better tasting.)

I can find Mary's Chickens at Faletti's, Avedano's and Cal-Mart/Antonelli's.