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Good, Better, Best- Choosing Meats

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As I stated with my first post in this series, I fully recognize that some of you have very tight budgets or only have access to mega-marts due to your locations. Others will have the funds and availability to choose the best of the best. Either way, this post isn’t to condemn someone who can’t pick the best of every option, it is to help you make the best decision you can with what you have, where you are.

This week’s installment is on choosing meats. This post is to help you decide what is the best option for your budget. This posting is my opinion, and after research, you might reach a different conclusion. If you do, please comment and share what you found and your reasoning. I’m always open to changing my opinion and updating this post if new or different information comes along.

The Choices

Best– Locally grown, 100% pastured, organic or ‘not-certified but organic practice’

Better– 100% pastured, organic or ‘not-certified but organic practice’ [Read more…] about Good, Better, Best- Choosing Meats

One Track Minds That Get Derailed: Quick Chili

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We are, for the third time this winter, getting snow.  The snow is supposed to fall until Tuesday and we’re not supposed to go above freezing.  Their total prediction for this area is 4-6 inches last I looked, but we already have 3 inches and it’s supposed to snow through Tuesday!  They change the forecast hourly it seems.

Last year during the big 15″ snow, we had no power and I was hunkered down with cabin fever, alternating between loom knitting an afghan on a knitting board and planning the first garden revision via lantern and graph paper. I spent hours on that garden, even after the power came back on.  I became a one-track mind, weaving the garden and a massive expansion plan involving terracing and moving fences into our homestead master plan.  After multiple revisions and hours of discussion, we planted and worked… and worked… and worked.  And the garden failed due to alternating drought and flooding.  Failed miserably and painfully, after the hours of planning and toil.  It was disheartening to the point I decided to scale back for 2011.  With the amount of time and dedication a garden takes, I was scared to devote too much to it and experience another failure.

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Tamale Pie

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I field a lot of questions about corn and cornmeal and how to absorb more nutrition from it.  My answer is that if you wish to use corn, the best way to do so for the average cook is to use Masa Harina.  Masa is corn that has been soaked in lime, dried and ground into cornmeal.  Store your masa, like all corn flour products, in the freezer.

Masa can be used to make tortillas, cornbread-crusted dishes and more.  Due to the change in flavor brought about by the lime, it especially works well with Mexican-flavored dishes. I sometimes make a pan of masa-based cornbread to go with Mexican dishes when we’re tired of rice.

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Real Food Storage Q&A

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I’ve had folks e-mail and post on the forum, asking questions about the specifics of my food storage. I’d like to take a chance to answer those questions before the next installment of the Real Food Storage series comes out on Monday morning and my radio interview on Thursday night with The 21st Century Homekeeper.

These questions came up because we actually LIVED on our food storage while my husband was unemployed for 11 months.  We had one year of food stored and when he found a new job, we had two weeks of food left.  So my year’s worth of storage made for 11.5 months of food, it would have gone longer had our garden not drowned that summer.  So I’d say we hit our mark pretty well. [Read more…] about Real Food Storage Q&A

Curried Pumpkin Soup

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Jeff and I love this soup. The combination of pumpkin, coriander, coconut milk and curry is beyond fabulous. Don’t skimp on the rapadura, it offsets the spiciness and really makes the flavor pop.  This is a large pot of soup, it makes at least 12 servings.

Curried Pumpkin Soup
From the Menu Mailer

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Whoopie Pie

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This cute little guy is the whoopie pie that is in the Valentine’s Day Menu Mailer.  He’s about 2 inches tall, a portable treat that’s perfect for little hands.  They are gluten and dairy free, and they can easily be made egg-free by using an egg replacer for the cookie.  The whoopie pies are for the kid in all of us.  The frosting is thick but is low in sugar.  I am thrilled that I finally figured out a method to make frosting that doesn’t require white powdered sugar or dairy to thicken it, and this recipe only contains a small amount of powdered rapadura for the sweetener.  Another method is used to thicken the frosting.

The Valentine’s Day meal has a beef recipe, two side dishes and two desserts. The main meal is an Asian-inspired steak, pilaf and vegetable dish.  The steak was just as good cold on a salad the next day as it was hot.  This recipe is now my personal go-to recipe for all cuts of steak, we enjoyed it so much.

The other dessert is called Chocolate Euphoria.  It is an ingenious custard that will only take a few minutes to make and doesn’t require the oven or a water bath.  It’s a great finish to a meal where you’re hosting company because they’ll think it took you a lot of time, effort and fuss to make it. You can smile and thank them for the compliments instead of telling them it only took about 15 minutes to make!

The Mailer also contains four other dinners and one breakfast.  You can purchase the mailer here.

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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.