Beet kvass

This week I made some beet kvass. It's supposed to be very cleansing and have "a favorable effect on disturbed cellular function." The way to make it is you take 3 beets and peel and chop them coarsely then place them in a 2 quart jar with 1/4 cup whey* and a tablespoon of salt. Then you fill the jar with water, put a lid on it and leave it out for 2 days, then move to refrigerator for storage. You can reuse the beets once more after it's been drunk.

*You can make whey by taking some raw milk or whole-milk buttermilk and letting it sit at room temperature 1-2 days until it visibly separates into white curds and yellowish whey. Then, according to Nourishing Traditions, the curds can be strained through cheesecloth and left to drain until it stops dripping, resulting in cream cheese. I tried this a while ago and it didn't taste much like cream cheese. A lot more sour and a little disappointing. Whey, however, is supposed to be great for joint elasticity! And you can make a drink of it that is equal parts whey and water with a little lemon juice. I haven't tried it yet but I have a lemon sitting on my counter just waiting to be squeezed into some whey and water.

kefir bread

Yesterday I discovered that you can make bread with kefir! So I mixed some unbleached white flour with enough kefir to make a doughy ball, added salt and kneaded til it was an elastic ball. Then I left it in a bowl covered with plastic wrap all night and most of today. The cultures in the dough made it rise like yeast bread. Tonight I made some coconut chicken soup but before that I formed the dough into naan-style flat rounds and let them proof on a baking sheet covered in plastic wrap. They cooked up pretty nice at 400 degrees in about 15 minutes, although it tasted nothing like naan. More like some kind of sourdough flatbread, but pretty good! Maybe next time I'll see if it will bake nicely in loaf form...

Yam Pie is good

Yam pie turned out pretty good despite my initial doubts about its ability to invert onto a plate.

I used some sushi rice that I had in the cupboard even though the recipe I based this off of said to use regular white rice AND even though neither types of refined rice are really endorsed by the WAPF. But you could make it with brown rice no prob.

Here's the recipe:

2 T. olive oil, divided
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 leek, diced and soaked in water 5 min.
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups rice
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
2 t. tumeric
2 t. cumin
salt and pepper
1 yam, sliced into 1/4-inch slices

Heat oil in an oven-proof pan, add red pepper, leeks and garlic and cook 2 min. Add rice, almonds, spices, cook 1 min. Transfer to a bowl. Heat remaining olive oil in the same pan, layer sweet potato slices in concentric circles. Spoon rice mixture on top of that. Pour 4 1/2 cups boiling water over it. Bake 20 minutes at 350, covered. Bake another 10 minutes uncovered. Let sit 15 minutes. Invert onto a plate (it will happen!).

I served it with...

Purple cabbage cooked in bacon fat!

This was easy and delicious AND pretty. First I cooked some nice Carlton Farm bacon in the pan and left the fat in there. Then I sauteed some shredded cabbage and sliced green onions, adding salt, pepper, dried oregano and lime juice as it cooked. Then I sprinkled the cooked bacon on top right before eating it. Soooooo good.

Kefir in a cup!

This is what I usually have for breakfast: kefir in a cup! Along with some buttery toast. Right now I've got "Killer Dave's" flourless sprouted wheat bread in the freezer. It keeps longer in there and toasts up just the same as not-frozen bread. The butter I like to use is the only one I've been able to find at any grocery store that's from pasture-fed cows: Organic Valley "Pasture Butter."