easy ways to start...

I am working my way into cooking completely by the concepts in the book Nourishing Traditions. I'm hoping to get my hands on a copy of What the Bible Says About Healthy Living. Seems like a good place to look, huh? :O)

The book talks a lot about how many things need to be treated before we eat them to help with digestion and bring out the nutrients or neutralize things that aren't beneficial in them. For example- grains need to be soaked, sprouted, sour leavened etc to deactivate the enzyme inhibitors. Enzymes are complex proteins that act as catalysts in almost every process that takes place in the body. When we treat our grains the enzymes are able to help our digestion and the nutrients are more readily available.
Meats that are marinated or well aged present less of a strain on our digestive system because of the 'predigestion'.
(not my words, poor summation of one of the sections in Nourishing Traditions)

Anyway- i'm attempting to explain a little bit of the WHY to you in hopes that i will understand and retain it better and maybe help you out in the process.
As i am relearning and changing my perception of "normal" eating there are some easy things that i've started or continued that you can do too!

Veggies are an area that we can probably ALL branch out in... here's another piece of info from the book for you "Of the 4,000 or so edible plant species that have fed human societies at one time or another in the past, only 150 are widely cultivated today and just three of them provide 60 percent of the world's food. That seems crazy to me! There is such diversity in the plants and animals God created and different nutrients that we need from them. Try to be adventurous and check out some options besides corn and peas :O)

Easy Peasy veggie number 1: Butternut Squash.
if you are trying to buy locally and in season this is great in the fall/winter in the midwest.
wash your squash well, cut it in half, fill a baking dish with less than 1 in of water and lay the halves down on the flat side. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. turn over and put a few dollops of (real) butter and some fresh rosemary on top, bake another 5 minutes. enjoy! my kids loooove this, Joel thinks its okay.
another option is to put raw honey & butter in a container bath of warm/hot water (with out letting the temp reach 118 degrees) and then poor into the cavities of the squash when it's done cooking.
Here's our most recent squash.


Easy Peasy veggie number 2: steamed Asparagus.
wash your asparagus well, cut the bottoms off and put into your steamer. My mother in law knows how much i like asparagus and actually bought me a tall steaming pot specifically for asparagus :O)
steam for about 5 minutes until bright green and easily pierced. transfer to warm serving dish top with butter, lemon juice and maybe some sea salt. DONE!
Emory, Joel and I love it- Leland doesn't like that it has "hair". he's definitely in the if it looks strange i don't want it stage, but he still eats a few pieces of the stalk.
this was the best bunch of asparagus i've ever bought- nice and fresh!


I made my own chicken broth last week or the week before and put it away in mason jars in the freezer for future use. of the 7 jars i have 3 left, i think. If you want to know how to do it go here. i used a whole chicken with organs because i didn't have a bunch of chicken bones lying around, silly me :O)
it was a stretching experience but by no means hard. It kind of made me feel accomplished and hardcore, haha.

Since i had that stock available making Chicken and brown rice soup was no big deal. Recipe here. You can basically put in whatever sounds yummy. We did carrots, celery, snap peas and chicken because that's what we had. this is gluten free also if you or family happen to have an allergy.






I promise i'll only do one or two food post a week so you aren't annoyed or overwhelmed by it :O)
This week we are on budget crunch (come on tax refund!) and will be cooking with what we have in the freezer... so some of it will be very healthy (wild crab legs!) and some of it will be less healthy. Luckily now i know that marinating does more than just make it taste better so i will have options for our meat. Our fresh food gets eaten so quickly that we might be getting sparse by pay day- lets see how far we can stretch it!

hoping and praying you have a good week that is deliberate, focused and joy filled.