Metabolic Healing

The farm produce has arrived!  Through the summer I will pick up a box of vegetables and fruit twice a month straight from the CSA.  The first one included some rhubarb, a head of troutback romaine lettuce, a bag of mixed baby greens, some organic parsley, two bunches of spring onions, a bunch of radishes, a container of organic mushrooms.  I split this share with my friends who live across the street.  This is fortuitious, becuase what she doesn’t know how to use, I can prepare and share with her.  That’s what happened with the rhubarb.  I used a modification of the pie crust recipe from Nourishing Traditions.  (It’s basically almond meal and coconut oil, some butter and salt.  Prick some holes in the crust and bake at 300 degrees.  Watch that it doesn’t burn.)  Then I prepared some stewed rhubarb with a pinch of stevia.  When that cooled, I spread it into the parbaked crust.  I sliced strawberries over the rhubarb layer and baked the pie just long enough for the fruit to cook a little.  I topped each serving with plain whipped cream.  It wasn’t very sweet, but it was good.  Better with ice cream.

I ended up grazing on a lot of greens that week, simply to use what I had.  I included the spring onions and radishes from the share whenever possible.  I had so much lettuce, I used it as a bed for everything, even under eggs for breakfast.  Perhaps my favorite was a BLT salad dressed with mayo, Greek yogurt, black pepper, and a dash of balsamic vinegar.  

Almost a week later and we hadn’t used the mushrooms, but they were in great shape.  I made a salad from a cookbook that has mushrooms, celery, shaved parmesan and a lemon juice/olive oil dressing.  It was a good combination of earthy, tangy, crunchy, and salty.

As for the parsley, my neighbor made a tilapia dish with a parsley sauce on the top.  The sauce is a variation on gremolata.  Besides parsley, it has lemon juice, olive oil, lemon rind, salt pepper, and garlic. 

I tried beet kvass from the farm.  I enjoy my homemade kombucha and thought it would be fun to have something else to drink.  The beet kvass seems a little expensive, but I have found that a little goes a long way.  It is a really refreshing sip to have out of the fridge, just watch that you don’t drip on your clothes.  With my adrenal fatigue, the saltiness is so refreshing! 

If you eat low carb or Nourishing Traditions, you may both appreciate eggs and long for a break from the usual preparations.  I do rely heavily on eggs in my diet.  I got some Auracana eggs from the farm for the sheer noverly of it.  They are from an old breed of chicken that wasn’t bread for egg size, so the eggs are all a little differently sized and shaped.  They have a hint of blue green in the shell.  They supposedly taste a little richer.  I am not sure if this is so, but I am expecting my second dozen in this week’s order.  I was reminded by readers of the “grab-and-go”convenience of hard boiled eggs, so I did prepare some of those (thank you very much). 

I find I am really drawn to mixing up savory and sweet these days so I made a sweet coconut omlette.  It is my day off and I have nothing much in my fridge.  But I did have the time to get creative with what remained.  I scrambled 2 eggs with two big tablespoons of ricotta cheese, a drop of vanilla extract and a drop of almond extract, and a pinch of stevia, a pinch of salt and a dash of black pepper.  I lightly browned some coconut shreds in cocnut oil, then removed them to a plate.  I scrambled and fried my egg mixture in some coconut oil and a little butter and placed it on the bed of coconut.   The ricotta makes it light.  The tiny drop of almond extract gives it a real coconut cake flavor. 

I pick up a brand new share and farm order today, so check back for my reviews.  I am especially excited to try the fermented mustard!

About the Author...

Audrey's first love is massage. She is currently a student of energy work but is always up for a new challenge on "earth school." Audrey works part-time in the food and wine industry and is in the process of re-evaluating her relationship to food. She strives, above all, to be authentic as she finds her own way to health.