Flank steak may be most favorite beef cut. It just has awesome flavor and is tender to eat. And, I don’t know, but there seem to be more of them in stores in the summer than the winter.
Yes, I like rare meat. More of the nutrients are preserved in rare meat than well done, and it is way more tender. You want to cut flank steak on an angle and in thin slices.
Store extra slices with the juice added to keep them from drying out. You can reheat them if you like by putting them into a heated oven and turning off the heat–let them sit, with juice, for about 5 minutes. You could cover them lightly.
Or, you can eat the meat cold.
Red meat is the only place one gets vitamin B12 IN A FORM THE BODY CAN USE. Red meat has been terribly demonized in the past few decades. Yes, CAFO meat has problems–but grass fed beef is more and more available in local grocery stores. Or from small farmers. I just do the best I can and sometimes just buy…a flank steak.
And, remember that lamb is a red meat. And, bison.
PS: that wooden cutting board was a wedding gift in 1966. I just wash it with soap and hand dry it after use.
I was so hungry for rice the other day, and I had a package bought locally of a mix of rices. Organic, but not sprouted. I cooked the whole package and froze meal-size containers for later.
I control grains–though you would not know that with the amount of fresh corn I’ve been eating. All I have to do is walk past a rice package to put on weight. I just don’t handle rice carbs well it seems. But, of course, I love it.
I had roasted chicken on hand to use, so made this salad. I also love the tiny petite green peas and had some I had cooked on hand. Yes, another carb. I can’t do beans (which I also love) with the histamine intolerance, but peas are ok. The fresh herbs from the garden really increase flavor in a salad like this one. Ditto the really good Koroneiki olive oil.
I couldn’t find organic sprouted rice locally–not at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or the local grocery store (Harris Teeter). So I ordered some from Amazon.
I had to put the 5th set (of 6) of mystery quilt blocks on the rug upstairs as the half-square triangle quilt has gobbled up all the design wall real estate. These blocks were fun to make.
Here’s the big gal. “Bonanza”? maybe. The top border is mostly pinned–and I have only sewn three of the blocks on the left of the border together. I stopped to make more and more and more needed half-square triangles for the rest of the border.
I have no idea about a backing or binding yet. And that’s ok.
I’m sewing on the 3rd border for “the quilt from hell.” Yeah! And I laid out the last border parts to make sure the colors were ok for where each piece would go–in terms of where they would fit in with the quilt itself.
My coffee is gone now, so I’m off to run errands before it gets too hot. And today I’ll sew! Yesterday was too busy, which is rare for me.
I’ve not posted recently, but I’ve been busy and happy over the July 4th period of time.
Recently, I made this roasted summer squash soup. I had bought a package of organic yellow summer squash and green zucchini at the local grocery store. And I hadn’t done anything with it, and it needed to be used. So, I roasted all of it in the oven–cut in rounds, sprinkled with herbs, salt, and good olive oil. I had some for one meal with a grilled steak.
But…
What to do next? There was a lot of it to eat in a few days.
I put all of it in a pot, covered it with water, brought it all to a hot stage, and “boat-motored” it.
Here’s my “boat-motor,” which I truly love. I like that it plugs in so there are no battery issues.
I sautéed the usual suspects (carrots, onion, garlic, celery, half of a red pepper I had on hand), and added the chicken. Of course I used duck fat as my sauté fat.
Isn’t this half of a red pepper pretty? When I cook, as you know from reading my blog, I like to use what I have on hand. I think of these things as “assets.”
I also had some fresh corn I had taken off the cob. When they have multiple fresh corn for sale, like 6 for X dollars, I buy the 6, cook them all, and remove the kernels from the extra cobs.
I also had some collards that needed to be used. I had wanted to blanch them, stem them, and have them as wraps for a chicken salad I had made, but that didn’t happen.
I washed and stemmed the leaves and rolled the leaves together and cut them.
Then I cut those rolls in the other direction and put them into the pot on the stove.
I like this brand of chicken. I was able to get it in Maine too. I was only able to get these boned and skinned breasts on July 4th weekend, so I made do with it. I had wanted thighs which have more flavor. To me, today’s chicken breasts taste like sawdust. They are tasteless.
Here’s everything together now–and I had some frozen/defrosted broth from cooking the chicken for the chicken salad I recently made. So I added that to the pot. I had cooked that broth down a bit for storage so it was strong.
Americans no longer eat nose to tail any more. Instead we buy muscle meats. And we are missing all the glycine we would get from animal ligaments that are not present in lean muscle meat. When I make a soup, I add one scoop of gelatin powder to it. First you put the soup in a short glass (or something like that), add some liquid (I used milk this time). In a bit the gelatin reconstitutes, so I add some of the hot broth to it–BEFORE ADDING IT TO THE SOUP.
The last thing I added was the squash puree.
And here you have it–a gorgeous soup that is FILLED with awesome tastes. There were so many flavors to enjoy–to which the fresh herbs added on top added. I buy dill, but I have basil, Italian parsley, thyme, mint, and oregano planted here. (I didn’t add the garden sage, lavender, rosemary, or chives for this soup.) Go slow with fresh oregano as it is a very strong herb.
And about that practice of having fresh corn on hand. Here’s a salad I made using some of the leftover grilled steak and corn prior to making the soup.
All of this food was so yummy. I don’t mind spending some time cooking as I have food for future meals, which gives me more time to do other things AND the enjoyment of beautiful, tasty food.
I usually put a whole chicken in a big pot of water (sometimes I add the usual suspect savories if I want to save the broth). This time I couldn’t find the right size of a whole chicken–they were either too big or too small–so I used chicken parts. There was one part with the breast, but the other part was the drumstick and thigh. Basically I think chicken breasts–especially the boned and skinless versions– taste like dry paper, so I almost always lean towards the dark meats. But chicken salad needs SOME white meat, thus the use of the whole chicken when one can.
While the chicken parts were cooking, I set up the veggies: grated carrot, peeled and chopped cucumber, a bit of sweet raw onion diced, and celery diced. I had half of a yellow bell pepper, so I added it too. (Green pepper would be too strong for this salad I think.)
I was already hungry, so I set up a bed of lettuce, raddichio, and some of the roasted broccoli I made the other day on my plate. I have fallen in love with the baby red lettuce leaves in the stores now–the claim is that they have more iron than baby spinach, but that claim needs to be researched.
The chicken parts took about 30 minutes to cook, so I went outside to gather up fresh herbs for my mayo and then made it. LOOK at that beautiful color–due to beautiful egg yolks from local eggs.
Making homemade HEALTHY mayo is dead easy–and if you want to keep some for a few days, just add a bit of whey from your yogurt to preserve it. THIS mayo is super healthy, with its fresh eggs, good olive oil, the garlic, etc. Vitamin E, which makes beautiful skin abounds, and the egg yolks bring choline in to play.
Put two eggs, a tablespoon of good mustard, a tablespoon of something acid (lemon juice is lovely, but any vinegar will do too), and salt to taste into a blender. I added a garlic clove roughly chopped too. Have a bottle of a light olive oil ready to pour into the top of the bender. Turn the blender to a slow setting, start it, and start adding the olive oil in a thin stream. When the mixture has “made” and isn’t absorbing any more oil, stop. Your mayo is done.
If you want to add herbs, which I did, add them after the mayo is made and process it once more until the herbs are mixed in. I used fresh basil, thyme, a leaf or two of oregano (it is strong), and some Italian parsley with the leaves taken off the stems.
Ah, the chicken is done. After it has cooled enough to touch, take the meat off the bones and discard the bones and the skin. I use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut up the meat because that is what my Georgia grandmother taught me.
Pour the mayo over you chicken and veggies–using as much as you like. I like a lot, and the meat will absorb a lot of the mayo when the salad is stored.
Here’s my lunch. Chicken salad is super rich, so I wound up saving about a third of this salad to add to my supper portion–where I’d also have a big bowl of fresh berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries) drizzled with maple syrup.
The rest of my salad went into this bowl and is covered by this very nifty top. I love these tops and have written about them in an earlier post. NO PLASTIC here today.
I am only missing some of those tiny green peas I love and can buy frozen at Whole Foods. On the next trip that way, I’ll stock up with a few packages.
When I moved to Maine, I encountered a strong bias toward healthy, clean local foods and homeopathic help when needed. Living in Maine changed my life.
One of the first books given to me by a dear friend was Sally Fallon Morell’s Nourishing Traditions. It really changed my life. Morell is one of the founders of The Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization that sells no products beyond books and information based on research, often done by scientists who have specialized in how food works in the human body.
Price was a dentist who traveled the world to find groups of healthy local people in order to identify why they were healthy. He judged “health,” in part, by the condition of their teeth. What each healthy group was eating was a primary question for Price. He learned these groups of people ate healthy, clean, WHOLE foods present in their particular environments. AND, he noted that when they started eating “modern” foods, they became malnourished and sick. He left a most interesting archive of his discoveries.
The Weston A. Price Foundation has a terrific web site that anyone can use to research a food or health question.
Sally Fallon Morell is a nutritional researcher in her own right. In the formation of the Weston A. Price organization, Morell worked with Dr. Mary Enig, an internationally recognized expert on how various fats work in the human body. Enig had published work that said that trans fats were dangerous for humans–in the era when industry was seeking to substitute plant fats for the animal fats humans have eaten for thousands of years. The industry went after Enig, and she lost all research money and never got more. A few decades later, “science” had to acknowledge that trans fats were indeed dangerous for humans. But note that this story illustrates how powerful industries work to create room for their own products: they demonize what they want to replace.
Here’s an article that came into my internet feed the other day. It is based on an interview with Morell. You might find some surprises here that run counter to popular belief.
It should be no surprise to anyone these days that media bombards us with countless claims about what is healthy for humans, much of which is a departure from what has supported humans for thousands of years and much of which is based on “science” supported by industry to “prove” their claims are true.
Living in Maine, with all its farms and clean foods, transported me back in memory to how I grew up. My father was military, and we moved frequently, but lots of time was also spent with my mother’s people in rural Georgia, with access to local foods from the family farm and gardens. Family members gathered food daily, and much time was spent on food preparation and eating together.
After exposure to Morell’s Nourishing Traditions, I promptly reverted to eating the kind of traditional my grandparents ate. And I’ve never turned back from that practice. It is serving me well in so many ways as at 78 I am healthy and strong and have boundless energy and a zest for life. My food is my medicine, and I don’t need anything concocted by industries that do not have my best interests at heart.
Traverse is waiting for me to put her on the longarm to baste her layers, but I’ve digressed to quilty playing for a bit.
Almost two decades ago I bought this kit from the now-closed Mainely Sewing quilt shop. Actually I bought TWO kits as I wanted to make a quilt that was wider than one kit allowed. The main fabrics are Kaffe Fasset RED florals.
The sashing is an Alexander Henry pattern from 2008. And it is fine, as is the above pattern. But why didn’t I make this project back in the day? I don’t really know. I do remember that I wanted to make a RED quilt.
But I’ve moved on and changed with my quilting–becoming much more interested in modern quilts and the modern traditional category–both of which are simpler and often very graphic. So, how to use these red floral fabrics? I’m determined to wipe out all the saved projects I have–and I’m moving right along on that effort.
First, the pink sashing went into the stash–and I pulled out solid scraps that needed to be used. And here is what is growing on the design wall.
The blocks finish at 10 inches. And I’ll use a solid for a narrow sashing. I won’t use borders–I’ll take the blocks out to the border and use the narrow sashing as a finish–with no corner stones. Maybe the binding will be one of the red florals? I have a hunk of one fabric that…strangely…is cut on a bias and it might work. Seven 10-inch blocks by 8 blocks would make a nice-size quilt.
I don’t know the sashing color yet. Maybe a lime green? There is a lot of bright green these fabrics.
Meanwhile, I’m also cutting and making half-square triangles from the solid scraps. And, playing with this idea, which would make a 20-inch block. Perhaps that rose sashing needs to be brighter? I saw a quilt Tara Faughnan made, using this kind of a block, and it is so fun. Her creativity knows no bounds. For sure. The squares on the right are for the next big block so I won’t repeat blocks in this first one.
Yesterday was a grilled lamb chop and roasted squash day–zucchini, yellow squash, sweet onion, carrots sliced thin, and fresh herbs from the garden. I should have added some garlic chopped fine too. Next time. ***I’ve learned from son Mike NOT to roast these tender squashes very long in the oven or they get mushy. Just 20 minutes in a hot oven. Then just broil them for a few minutes.
I can’t wait to get back to my studio upstairs today! But I have some errands to run first. And cooking for the day as well, though I have more of the squash mixture.
It’s a beautiful day here today–after (much needed) two days of rain and one day of overcast clouds.
I have the porch back for lunch as it has now dried out and the temps are comfortably warmer. We’ve all been in warmer clothes these past three days.
So, I grilled a steak–which will give me three meals.
And I put my dinner portion of steak on a big salad as that just felt right today. In addition to a lettuce medley, I had cooked food “assets” in the refrigerator that I added (corn taken off cobs, broccoli, little green peas). Fresh food additions were carrot, red pepper, sweet onion, cucumber, and fresh herbs (dill, mint, basil) added to a shake or two of a dried herbal mixture. Dressing was my Organic Roots Koroneiki olive oil. And, flaked salt, of course.
The flowers my granddaughter and son brought me a week ago are playing out now. I don’t quite have enough flowers in the garden to fill two pots yet. Hmmm… I’m sure something else can be done about the lack of flowers!
I’m reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I somehow missed some years back. There is a movie, too, but I thought I should read the book before watching the movie.
I puttered about in the garden this morning, and Alex was here to mow my lush-looking grass.
About a year ago, maybe more, SIL Maryann took some of the mint in my Maine garden. That mint came from my grandmother’s Georgia garden, and I had had it for at least 50 years. When I moved to South Carolina, winter was encroaching, and I was so, so busy that I did not dig any of the mint to take with me. The mint at Maryann’s is thriving, so she dug me some and mailed it. I planted it this morning. Best of all, if it doesn’t make it, I could probably get more. I planted it well away from the mint I bought here, which is thriving.
I’m making the last row of the Traverse quilt. It’s a complicated row, and a granddaughter spent Friday night with me, and we played for most of Saturday, so Traverse got put on hold. But…maybe today…it will be ready for some pictures.
I tried the baked fish “chowder” again–but this time with a base of sliced Russet potatoes treated a bit like a scalloped recipe. Russets will hold up to baking without falling apart. I added a carrot sliced thin, alongside the frozen corn and peas from last time. I added, again, bits of sweet onion, but also some grated mozzarella cheese over my potato base just before adding the fish. You could add Swiss cheese, which is included in a classic scalloped potato dish. Or whatever cheese you want. Add herbs and salt, of course.
I sliced the one Russet potato with the mandolin to get really thin slices. And that was plenty for my square pan.
The trick is that the potatoes should be covered with a mixture of whole milk and cream or half and half. *** AND they need to cook by themselves for a good 30 minutes before adding the cheese and the fish. Remember that thin fish fillets will cook in about 15-20 minutes.
The fish will add liquid that will be needed, but add more of your milk mixture if it has cooked out enough that it won’t cover at least the bottom of the fish. Add the cheese to the top of the potatoes and put the fish on top. Add salt and herbs to the fish. Dot the fish with butter.
Again, it was a delicious meal. And by cooking two fillets, I had food for another meal that just needed to be reheated–and maybe a bit more milk added.
I have to be careful with fish with my Histamine Intolerance issue. Fish has to be VERY fresh, which I could get in Maine with freshly caught haddock or cod coming pretty much daily into the local markets. Here in SC, I’ve been buying freshly caught frozen cold-water white fish. That’s working out very well.
***Read labels though. If the salmon says “Atlantic” anywhere, it is farmed, or so I’m reading. The labels on the white fish should say it is wild caught and frozen on the boat. Farmed fish COULD be ok, if the fish are in a clean environment, are not overly crowded, and are fed healthy foods. All three of those conditions are currently poorly met by the fish farmers. For salmon, you want wild-caught and Alaska, probably, on the label. Yes, the fish situation is a problem as we’ve fished out the oceans now, and fish is a great protein.
The other day I defrosted two haddock filets, and something came up where I didn’t want to bake them alone or spend time making a chowder. So, I thought I’d try a “baked chowder” instead.
I layered some frozen peas and corn in a baking pan and added some fresh sweet onion and dried spices. Then I laid in the fillets, salted the mixture, and poured a mixture of cream and milk (raw for me) over the top. I may have dotted the fish with butter too.
And wow! It was delicious with a yummy sauce.
While the fish baked (30 minutes given the frozen veggies), I cooked some mixed brown rice to add to my dish. Actually I started it first as it takes about 40-45 minutes on very low heat to cook until tender. I am loving the smaller two burners on my gas oven that allow for this very slow cooking of rice and my espresso coffee pot.
This meal was delicious and dead easy to make.
If you wanted to peel and THINLY slice some potatoes as the base veggie (russets hold up best with a scalloped method)–you could put those in the bottom, salt them, and cover them with some whole milk/cream (and maybe cheese for you), and let them bake about 20 minutes before adding other ingredients (more milk/cream I’m sure) or the fish. I might be tempted to keep the corn and peas too. YOU could top everything with some grated Swiss cheese too.
Here was my dinner yesterday–a roasted lamb rack, baked sweet potato (a half) with raw butter, roasted zucchini rounds, and some fresh veggies.
I started to cut off a chop before taking a picture.
Yes, I like my meat rare, and I like the fat and save it from the roasting pan. I cut off the meat from the bone, but chew the bones clean–that’s where the glycine is, for one thing. I should have put some fresh dill on the fresh veggies.
Then there was fresh fruit with a drizzle of maple syrup and bits of mint leaves from the herb garden, which is thriving.
You know, I thought I was buying organic fruit at Whole Foods, but I wasn’t. Note to self: check the actual package and not the signs above the fruit.
I’ve been busy these past few days–part of which involved buying and planting more plants. And more amendments, some of which like sand and compost are HEAVY. And I left the wheelbarrow in Maine and don’t want to buy another one as the planting here is almost done now.
First, here’s a beautiful street island covered by the Asiatic Jasmine ground cover I’ve planted here. Those trees are live oaks, and you can see this ground cover thrives in their shade. And my AJ is spreading now in good form. It seems to be happy.
The plants I added to this sunny bed are all perennials or shrubs that thrive here–and they all bloom–so my garden will draw in pollinators. And for the past few days, I’ve seen a butterfly on the butterfly bush I planted last week.
Yes, I was very inspired by watching the live documentary in which DIL Tami Enright, director of The Bee Cause Project, participated this past week. I learned a lot, actually. And I decided I wanted everything I planted here to bloom and not just be plants that “hold down” places in the beds that surround the house.
I added Russian Sage, a Mexican sage (new to me), some pink dianthus nestled along the pine straw border, and a perennial lantana that is such a pretty color. (There are two forms of lantana here: annual and perennial. The annual plants I’ve seen here are either white or a vivid yellow. I have enough white and there is already yellow with the Stella D’Ora day-lilies. Besides, I lucked into finding this lantana which is exactly what I wanted. I trimmed it back a bit after I took this picture to encourage it to be less “leggy.”)
Last week, I planted in this long sunny bed a white Encore Azalea, Autumn Joy, that is some kind of Rhododendron Hybrid that will bloom spring through fall. How cool is that? It comes in other colors too.
At the far end of the bed is a “Flip-It” Chaste Tree/shrub that will get tall, die back in winter, and come back in the following spring. One keeps it as tall or short as one wants by trimming, depending on where it lives.
It is called a Chaste Tree as it has herbal properties that some claim can cause a loss of libido. It’s called Flip It because the underside of the leaves are the most beautiful soft lavender.
This vitex plant blooms with long purple spikes, so thrives in dry conditions. I didn’t add any compost to its planting hole, but did add a lot of sand for drainage and some fertilizer to give it a good start. This plant hates having wet roots–so time will tell if it can manage the clay here, augmented by sand for drainage.
And on the far side of the house–the shade side–I planted a fragrant white “Frost Proof Gardenia” that will bloom spring and summer. I wanted a plant that would get big enough to form a kind of visual barrier to the equipment on that side of the house.
Here’s the long view. It’s hard to know yet how much these holly bushes will fill in at this corner. This gardenia will get about 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide. I’ll have to figure out something attractive on both sides of the house for the hoses. (A gas line runs along this bed to that piece of equipment, so I’m not comfortable doing more digging in this area.)
Digging all those holes–was made much easier by the purchase of this very heavy Maddox. I left a totally good Maddox in Maine. I had no idea I’d be digging holes in clay in SC!!! Or, trying to.
The roses do seem to be thriving. They have a lot of new growth and are starting to spread sideways. I’ve lightly trimmed the tops off and on so they will spread sideways. They are about to put out a new flush of flowers.
The grass is doing well mostly and is a healthy deep green color. There are some bald spots where the grass is just sitting down on clay. I’ve added some manure compost to some of those spots in the hope it will give them something to feed on in the sterile clay. There are pieces of the grass in those spots; it just needs a bit of help with the clay. And, apparently, lots of water.
Centipede grass is tricky, as I’ve said. But I’m hoping I’m learning to understand it better. It does not like competition, for one thing, so I’ve spent many hours after a heavy rain hand-pulling weeds in the early morning or late afternoon. I don’t mind that work; it gets me outside in the sun. I’ve filled several big grocery plastic bags with weeds–and the grass is showing the results now. Clearly, this grass LOVES water.
I’m taking a rest day today, for the most part. I’ll sew placemats after my dinner. The finished placemat pile is growing–I think I have six more to make. Each has its own napkin and most napkins are solids. The napkin to the side of the pile in an extra and is smaller–maybe it would be nice in a bread basket?
Dinner in a bit is lamb rack, baked sweet potato, roasted zucchini, some cut fresh veggies from yesterday, fruit for dessert (cantaloupe, raspberries, blackberries with a hint of maple syrup and mint from the garden), and an espresso with raw honey and raw cream–and time on the porch to read.
Have a great weekend! And thanks for reading this far, if you did!
