Spring Break Eats

Leftover leg of lamb with raspberry vinaigrette, carrots roasted with maple syrup and ginger, and a sweet potato with orange garlic sauce and butter. I don't have a recipe because my mom had made it from scratch and it was sitting in the fridge, because life at my parents' house is good like that. 

Omelette with Asian-inspired mix of microgreens, smoked salmon, beets with balsamic, and roasted asparagus. 

Cooked chicken pulled off the carcass, a small handful of raisins, baby chard, and mayonnaise. 

A Huge Ass Salad with Asian microgreens, baby Swiss chard, some sprouts, spinach, carrots, and cucumbers with canned salmon and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Must be something about the longer days and not warmer temperatures that makes me crave big salads.

This is my second round of that dessert recipe I tried a week or two ago–the Meyer lemon fluff. This time, however, I turned it into blood orange chocolate! I doubled the recipe, but somehow it ended up less fluffy and more like a panna cotta. But it was still delicious.

In the past 2+ years, I can count on one (maybe two) hands how many times I've "paleo baked." No matter what, it doesn't make me feel good. That doesn't stop me from trying once and a while, and these sure did taste good. I used this cupcake recipe and for the frosting, I just mixed a package of unsalted Kerrygold butter, a half cup of honey, a teaspoon of vanilla, a half cup of coconut milk, and two tablespoons of chocolate. Not bad for winging it! 

On my last night at home, I made pork spareribs with carrots, yellow squash, and onions. This was quite a big meal, especially since I didn't photograph the purple sweet potato. 

On my last morning, I had a ham, asparagus, and spinach omelette with duck prosciutto on the side. Served with some hibiscus kombucha. 

Not too attractive but on my first night back in my apartment, I made spaghetti squash and topped it with smoked clams and had a side of cumin-roasted cauliflower. 

A super fast lunch after 4pm on Saturday was two grass-fed hotdogs, dill sauerkraut, and horseradish mustard. I've never really noticed nightshade spices in hotdogs to bother me (since I eat them only a few times a year), but this time they may be causing some pain. I'm not too sure. I also tried to trial white potatoes early in the week. They were twice-baked, organic, and peeled. Unfortunately, the next day, the dogs did something stupid while I was holding on to them, and my shoulder luxated. Who's to say it wouldn't have if I hadn't eaten the potatoes? Although I'm having a hard time remembering the last time that happened and it may actually have been before my diet upheaval. So there's a strike against white potatoes. It'll have to be a while before I try again, because my shoulder still doesn't feel right. 

Saturday was spent doing lots of cooking and not enough school work. For dinner, I made this tiny chicken with Niter Kebbeh Ghee. I also made braised endives, which I used to make a lot my senior year of college when I was very strictly low FODMAPs. I couldn't find that recipe again (it involved lemons and was kind of involved), but this time I found this recipe. 

Dinner is served.

And the batch cooking recommences.... Beef spareribs with lots of garlic, rosemary, and carrots. They got a little dry but I was trying to do too much with the one oven. 

Lots of cinnamon-y butternut squash with lard for breakfasts this week. 

A simple Sunday morning affair: pork jowl bacon cooked with spinach, topped with scrambled eggs cooked with herbs de Provence and garlic.

Recent Eats and Rants

Blogging is not yet a habit... and it may never be. But here are some of my recent meals.

My favorite stew I've made so far (I don't have a picture of it yet) included:

• lamb stew meat (100% grass fed, but unfortunately from Whole Foods and therefore, New Zealand)
• lamb heart (the butcher at WFM pulled it out of the back for me and it was only $3 and change/lb)
• carrots
• celeriac
• butternut squash
• onions
• lots of Merlot
• salt, pepper, sage, rosemary, and thyme

I froze quite a few containers of this and so I've been trying to spread them out to punctuate some of the not so successful stews as of late.

This is a meal I made the Sunday before our second anatomy exam. I used a Dutch oven instead of a slow cooker, so it was done in about 3-4 hours. I would've left it on longer, but it was getting late. I definitely prefer the oven taste, but sometimes I just need to leave it for longer.  This mixture included:

• beef short ribs
• crimini mushrooms
• carrots
• red cabbage
• onions
• garlic
• Merlot
• rosemary, salt, pepper, sage

Served with a sweet potato and coconut oil on the side. I recently took the dairy-free plunge (again). This is the third time I've challenged dairy in the last year, and for the first time, I see a substantial difference. I'd come to rely on raw cheddar and 24 hr fermented yogurt (both always 100% grass fed) as quick and easy sources of fat, and so it was probably the hardest this time to give it up. But my "seasonal" allergies were just getting to be too much. I was sick of sniveling all through lecture and always needing to make sure my pockets were stuffed with tissues. I was going to try to finish my butter and cheese, but one day I decided enough was enough. I still have a hunk of cheese and a mostly whole stick of butter in my fridge, plus a few small jars of flavored ghee sitting around. The improvement in my allergies isn't a miracle by any means--I'm still a bit sniffly but the other day I forgot to bring a tissue with me to class, and it wasn't a big deal. Maybe it would be totally gone if I could consistently get at least eight hours of sleep. Who knows? I guess I needed to get more healing done to be able to see a difference at all. Maybe once I finish my round of SIBO supplements and go back to a leaky gut supplement protocol it will improve even more. That said, I'm looking forward to getting some raw heavy cream to on top of pumpkin desserts at Thanksgiving.

Here's a picture of the two slow cookers going at once (broth and maybe the lamb stew). I could definitely use some more counter space. 

These came out of the pork neck bones I had going in that broth. Anatomically relevant cervical vertebrae for our second exam!

This was one of my more boring stews. As usual, I was overly optimistic as I was chopping things, and ran out of room for more vegetables. So this only included:

• ox tail
• beef stew meet
• green cabbage
• onions
• Merlot
• salt, pepper, rosemary

Served over spaghetti squash.  

These were some weekend vegetables: the carrots that didn't make it into the stew and broccoli, drowning in tallow and sprinkled with rosemary, then baked. 

This was a fancy weekend dinner: 

• simply steamed carrots (with coconut oil) 
• steamed green beans (tossed with Dijon mustard)
• spaghetti squash
• sauteed mushrooms and onions in bacon fat and Merlot, tossed with mussels from a can

Definitely plan on repeating that one. 

In other news, my head banging impulse control has been sorely tested over these last few weeks. 

I had a few of "Hallelujah!" moments when...

1. I posted that British/fat/anti-statin article on Facebook and a couple of friends (including one of my classmates) liked it (I'm not alone!)
2. I found out that one of my classmates used to work at the integrative animal hospital I've begun taking my pets to. I haven't sought her out yet, but I will (maybe I'm REALLY not alone!)
3. Our physio lecturer said that fevers were a good thing, as long as they didn't get too high (ok, so in animals it's a bit different since we don't go around bringing down fevers and owners probably don't know their animal has a fever until they bring it in, but still, he was sort of talking about us as people patients, too)
4. He also consistently repeats that ketone bodies are the brain's preferred fuel source (as in, over glucose)! But he's a bit hypocritical because he also says ketosis really isn't a good thing (it's only good in a compensatory manner). 

And then, unfortunately, there were more times when on the outside I was taking notes like a good little schoolgirl while on the inside I was screaming, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!!!" Let's take a look at some...

1. A few people behind me in lecture one day got into a conversation about how one is gluten-free and probably should do things like use a separate toaster, but doesn't and another tried being gluten-free for a while because her doctor thought she might be sensitive, but it turns out she isn't. I happen to know that this person has an autoimmune disease, too. They went on to talk about how they think some gluten-free pancake mixes are "better than the real thing." One of them wants to get into more gluten-free baking from scratch, but the flour mixes are too complicated and expensive, so she buys the premade mixes or just the premade products. 
2. That same person who's gluten-free is also vegetarian and was talking to another vegetarian (who definitely had a morally superior attitude) about how it was so hard for her mom to cook for her, since she's such a great cook but all of her recipes contain animal protein. Ok, I get this. I go through the same thing with my aunt who loves making us pies and cakes. But the way she said animal protein, it was like her mom's recipes all had dirt in them (ok, maybe that's not a good analogy for the traditional foodists out there... let's says she said it like... it was a Twinkie). I think there was definitely talk about sustainability in there too. Oy vei...
3. Plaques, lipids, and statins... oh my! It's being beaten into our brains that a high fat diet is the devil's diet. And that cholesterol builds plaques and yada yada yada. And as I've said before, cats and dogs really haven't been built on high fat diets; however, our lecturer keeps bringing it back to human medicine. And if cats are our obligate carnivore as we're repeatedly told, why doesn't all the corn and wheat in conventional diets raise red flags?
4. This one here was my downfall. I made it a little over two months without rolling my eyes at our lecturers. This was a guest lecturer in one of our pass/fail classes. Our "philosophy" class, if you will. Today's topic was pet therapy, and as someone who's trained a decent therapy dog, I feel really strongly about this and enjoy this topic a lot. Unfortunately, at this school, the head nutritionist is deeply tied to our therapy group. And so when talking about the rules for therapy animals, they mentioned that raw diets are not allowed. Someone raised a question about this and the answer was, "What do you think about bringing a dog who's eaten raw meat into a hospital full of immuno-suppressed patients? Seems like grounds for lots of infections to me!" and then they basically gave themselves a big pat on the back that they're the only organization with this rule, all thanks to have a nutritionist (a nutritionist?! Wow!) on their team. CUE EYE ROLE. So later I went up to them and asked if it was a last meal kind of thing. The answer was, "Absolutely not. No raw meat ever. It's just too unsafe." Right. Because THAT'S where an immuno-suppressed patient is going to get an infection in a hospital, from a raw-meat eating dog. To be fair, I would totally be on board with a 'no raw meat for 24h' kind of rule. That makes total sense to me, because there IS a slight risk involved in eating or handling raw meat. But while you're suggested to wash your hands before and after a visit, it's not like the humans coming in can't ever touch raw meat. It just makes no sense. 
5. We had one slide on the benefits of omega-3's in pet food, and then one slide on the negatives. At the end our lecturer says, "Would you supplement your patients with omega-3's? I wouldn't." *FACE PALM* The negatives included: increased risk of bleeding, lipid peroxidation with vitamin E deficiency, contamination of heavy metals and pollutants, reduced immune reactivity, and reduced insulin release. He summarized by saying, "Currently, there is a lack of good research data on specific cause-effect relationships." Maybe that's true. But maybe, just maybe, it's because any research that's been done is from crudely extracted and processed omega-3's put into diets in ridiculously high quantities removed from their natural food source. Do I have any qualms about supplementing my pets with appropriate doses of Green Pasture's FCLO or adding whole fish, like sardines, to their diets? Not. At. All. 
6. (This may surprise you... this is an anti-paleo rant, but bear with me) So clearly, we've been talking quite a bit about diets in physiology. Which is why it really bothers me when people hate on doctors for not having any nutrition classes. You don't need specific nutrition hours to talk about nutrition! We talk about nutrition every day in physiological chemistry and physiology (because these are classes that can easily be combined between vet and med students). So that's total crap that doctors don't know anything about nutrition. Ok, most don't, because what's being beaten into our brains is bad fat, bad cholesterol, bad low carb, supplements are worthless, and drugs are gold, but it's still nutritional training even if it's not in a nutrition class! Frankly, I think it's a greater disservice to have all these laypeople (ok, they want to help and that's great) becoming "functional medicine practitioners" and various other "health/medicine" degrees that don't mean anything when they have NO physiological education whatsoever. It's a HUGE turnoff and very disappointing to work with a "practitioner" and have them say they're "prescribing" 5-HT, which is a precursor to serotonin, or they can't pronounce the compounds they're looking at in my test results, but coming up with supplement protocols based on it or don't understand what I mean when I say I virtually have no parietal cells left and they want to sell me supplements that boost my own stomach acid production. And so, once again, I find myself practitioner-less. 

Weekend

This was the first weekend I didn't spend Sunday cooking. Craziness! But I had plans to go out to dinner Saturday night (read: leftovers) and went a couple meals over with my previous batch-cooking days, so that coupled with a histology exam left me with Sunday free (of cooking that is).

Both Saturday and Sunday had some good hikes.

 After hiking, Sunday looked like this:

Sunday night dinner was some vegetable leftovers, plus Italian elk sausage and butternut squash with Indian dessert-flavored ghee. Would I recommend Indian butternut squash and carrots, mustard greens with coconut aminos, and Italian sausage?  It actually wasn't too weird...

I had this for breakfast again Monday morning.

I did my batch cooking Monday night. Hopefully it will be done before I go to bed. I'm in the process of clearing out my freezer in preparation for a half hog so this was...

• Only half of the biggest cabbage I have ever seen
• Parsnips
• Celeriac
• Apples
• Onions
• Pork belly
• Bacon ends
• Pork breakfast sausage meatballs
• Tarragon, caraway seeds, salt
• Apple cider (because I wanted to save my broth for drinking plain, what with all the illness going around our class, plus I didn't think Merlot would work well)

A weird combination of things, but hopefully it will work out. 

Because I made it so late, dinner was restaurant leftovers. We ate at a restaurant in the Foxwoods casino  in Connecticut. It doesn't sound like a place for real food, but it was surprisingly easy.  The server was great about avoiding gluten and the beef in the menu was broken down into corn-fed, grass-fed, and Wagyu (although the grass-fed meat was from Australia...).  They called themselves a seasonal restaurant though, so maybe the vegetables were relatively local.  Regardless, I had my grass-fed steak with a side of Hen of the Woods mushrooms (eaten Saturday night), spicy ham (aka questionable spices) and Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower and garlic (whole cloves!).  It was the kind of place where the menu was broken down into starters, meats, and sides, so I just had sides for starters, then meat and more vegetable sides.  Sure, I felt a little sicker than usual after, but it could've been a lot worse.

So this week will continue to test my stress management abilities and good sleep hygiene, but at least learning about lipids is invigorating. I appreciate my professor telling us that brains love ketone bodies and that "without cholesterol, there would be no life," though he reminded us of the dark side of too much dietary cholesterol. Ha. If I could, I'd go down five egg yolks right now...

Friday Night

I like to put a little extra effort into weekend night dinners. Sometimes it's nice to make something and then eat it right then and there. Food seems to stay warmer when it comes off the stove versus out of a microwave. This wasn't involved at all, but it certainly came at the expense of some histo studying...

• A couple of mackerel filets, frozen fresh a couple of months ago (I'm not sure what I'm going to do when my fish stores run out), pan-fried in beef tallow and semi-crusted in kelp seasoning
• Mustard greens (I got for free at the farmers' market!) steamed with coconut aminos and coconut oil
• Carrots bake/steamed with Digestive Ghee

I like to save fish for the weekend when I have time to cook, since leftover fish isn't something to get excited about (although canned fish sneaks in a couple times a week for lunch).