Get Your B12: Spiced Braised Beef Cheeks With Kalamata Olives

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of Vitamin B12 in your diet. Today, I would like to share a unique recipe with you that is a great way to make sure you are getting food based Vitamin B12. It's another one pot meal that will last you several days and allow you to "cook once, eat twice."

Beef is one of the best sources of Vitamin B12, with one 3oz serving providing 60-80% of your daily recommended value (depending on the cut). This recipe calls for beef cheeks, though you could probably use any stew cut.

Spiced Braised Beef Cheeks With Kalamata Olives
Ingredients:
2 lbs of Beef Cheeks
5 carrots
2 celery stalks
3 Cippolini onions
2 tbsp red palm oil
1 large sprig of thyme
5 green peppercorns
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp of Trader Joe's South African Seasoning Grinder
1/4 piece of star anise
1 tsp The Spice House Choucroute Garni Spice Blend
2 large bay leaves
1 tbsp Celtic Salt
4 cups of Bone Broth
2 cups water
1/2 cup kalamata olives
1/4 cup olive juice

Proces:
1. In a dutch oven, heat red palm oil and add quartered onion

 2. In pestle, using a mortar crush all spices and salt. Add to pot.

3. Saute for 10 minutes


4. Add Beef Cheeks

5. Let Beef Cheeks brown

 6. Chop carrots and celery and add to pot

7. Add broth and water, bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes

8. Add olives and olive juice
 

9. Cover and cook on low heat for 4-5 hours


10. Enjoy with Spaghetti Squash!

Shared on: Melt in Your Mouth Mondays, Scratch Cookin' Tuesday

The Real Reason You Feel Sick & What You Can Do About It!

You wake up in the morning and you barely have enough energy to press the snooze button. You look at the alarm clock and get extremely annoyed at the thought of having to get up and get your day started. As you swing your legs out of bed, you notice that your toes feel funny. You don't fully feel your big toe on your left foot and your little toe on the right foot is tingling. You get up out of bed and have to quickly hold onto the nightstand because you need to catch your balance. You think to yourself: "Is today Tuesday or Wednesday?" You're not completely sure and your mind to too foggy to remember yesterday's events. You realize that you really have to go-I mean REALLY have to go and you barely make it to the bathroom in time. Relieved, you walk over to your sink and let out a loud belch. You look at yourself in the mirror and have a hard time recognizing the person staring back. Does any of this sound familiar?

Whether you are experiencing some of these symptoms or all of them, you are not alone. These are classic symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency. B12 is essential for your brain, nervous system, and blood cells to all work properly. Vitamin B12 is abundant in high-quality animal protein, especially grass-fed/pastured beef liver. According to Paul Pitchford in Healing with Whole Foods, a large intestine  produces large amounts of vitamin B12, unfortunately it's the small intestine that absorbs it, so by the time it travels through your gut, it becomes compromised. According to Pitchford, since most people's digestive tracts are their weak spots, most people need to supplement B12.

Initially a B12 deficiency presents itself as a feeling of fatigue, upset stomach, indigestion. Other symptoms include pale skin, numbness in the fingers and toes, heart palpitations, anorexia, infertility, moodiness, paranoia, and other personality changes. Because the liver can store B12 for 3-6 years, a deficiency doesn't always present itself until the stores are depleted. Also, because folic acid and B12 have similar functions, sometimes it masks the true deficiency. Pitchford cautions that many people who eat a diet high in health whole grains, leafy greens, and vegetables are still often deficient in B12.

If you've taken birth control pills or antibiotics, consume alcohol, smoke, drink coffee, and have stress in your life, you are depleting your B12 stores. Vegans especially need to supplement B12 because of the lack of nutritional sources in their diet. In addition, if you suffer from leaky gut or any digestive issues, there is a big chance you aren't able to properly absorb the B12 in your food and even in your supplements. As part of my studies, I recently listened to a talk by Brenda Davis, author of Becoming Raw - the Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets (2010). She mentioned that we only absorb about .5%-1% of the B12 in our supplements and she recommends either taking 1,000 mcg twice a week or 29 mcg twice daily from supplements in addition to what you get from food. In comparison, the NIH recommends 2.4 mcg a day.

One of my favorite supplements of B12 is Chlorella and my favorite brand is Bright Earth Foods. 
Chlorella, an algae, has the highest concentration of chlorophyll of any plant, giving it a deep emerald-green color. Besides containing B12, Chlorella is high in protein, which makes it a great supplement for vegetarians and vegans. It also removed heavy metals, radiation, pesticides, herbicides and PCBs from body tissues. With all of the recent concern about GMO foods, Chlorella is a great supplement to help detox your body from the effects of non-organic food. In addition to supplying B12 and aiding detox, Chlorella has been known to reduce the symptoms of numerous types of cancers, diabetes, low blood sugar, arthritis, AIDS, candida, pancreatitis, liver cirrhosis, hepatitis, peptic ulcers, viral and bacterial infections, anemia, and multiple sclerosis. Bright Earth Foods Chlorella comes in chewable tablets that are sweet, salty, nutty and fun to eat because they make your tongue green. 3 grams of chlorella has 4mcg of B12.

I have been supplementing Chlorella for about 6 months and have noticed significant improvement in my digestive issues and mood. I was taking a different brand before Bright Earth Foods sent me their Chlorella. I like their Chlorella much more. It has a delicious earthy sea flavor reminiescnet of Sea Urchin to me. If you are interested in their product you can find it here: Bright Earth Food's Chlorella. 

Besides meats and fish, another source of B12 is nutritional yeast. This is not an ideal supplement for people with a tendency towards dampness and candida overgrowth. It's also important to make sure you are getting a high quality supplement that is naturally and not synthetically produced. If you are sensitive to MSG, like I am, pay attention to how nutritional yeast makes you feel. Personally, it make me very foggy and I can't consume it. If you are not sensitive, it's a great way to add cheesy flavor when you are dairy free.

 


In summary, if you are experiencing any other the symptoms I've mentioned, consider either testing your B12 levels or supplementing. You may hopefully start seeing improvement in 3-4 weeks. You deserve to feel your best everyday, what are you doing to make sure you do? Comment below, I want to hear from you!

Why I Won't Be Baking With Almond Flour for a While

About a month ago, I took the Biotek 96 General Panel Food Allergy Test and found out that I was no longer sensitive to almonds. I've been eating almonds sporadically but this test allowed me to jump into the world of grain-free baking, much of which is done using almond flour. I've been having so much fun experimenting with almond flour. So much fun that I think I've gone a bit overboard.

Eating too many nuts can be taxing on the digestive system. According to Paul Pritchford in Healing With Whole Foods, a person with a damp constitution like mine and who suffers from water retention and mucus build-up should avoid nuts all together, choosing flax seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, and pistachios instead. Also, Ayurvedic medicine recommends not eating almond skin because it irritates the gut lining. After a month of eating almonds or almond flour daily, I've now found myself experiencing tummy troubles that I haven't had since going grain free in July. And so, this will most likely be my last almond flour post for a little while, as I recuperate from another bout of excess.

I don't feel bad or guilty for overdoing on the nuts. I think there is nothing wrong with experimenting with ingredients. I think of every experience as a necessary experiment, and plus I wasn't going to throw away the bag of almond flour and the delicious sprouted almonds I bought at Whole Foods. So I invite you to never beat yourself up when you go a little overboard with anything, celebrate your enthusiasm and zest. If your tendencies are anything like mine, you will surely find yourself in this place again with something new.

With that sentiment I was to share a Pear Crisp recipe that I made with some wonderful very ripe Comice pears that from my Full Circle CSA. The goal was to make something simple with very few ingredients that was not only grain-free but also sugar free. The natural sugar from the ripened pears was plenty to give this dish sweetness.

Pear Crisp
Ingredients:
Filling:
6 very ripe Comice Pears
2 tbsp arrowroot flour
1 tsp The Spice House Cake Spice

Topping:
1 cup almond flour
1/8 cup coconut flour (for dusting)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 tsp cinnamon

Process:

1. In a cake dish, mash pears using a potato masher

2. Add Cake Spice and flour and mix well

3. In a bowl, mix almond flour, coconut oil and cinnamon and mash with your hands to create crumble

4. Place crumble on top of pears and using a sieve or sifter dust coconut flour

5. Bake in oven at 350 for 35-45 minutes

6. Enjoy!

I Want A Sweet Divorce

Last year I was planning on starting a blog called the "Sweetest Divorce." The blog was going to chronicle my divorce from sugar, but I never got it off the ground. Here is the only post from the blog:

I WANT A DIVORCE!!

We've been together for as long as I can remember (at this point). We've shared both fond and not so fond memories: family gatherings, birthdays, vacations, dinners with friends, foodie expeditions all over the world. There have been times where I honestly felt that I could not survive with you. And even now that I've set out to write about our impending divorce, I feel that I am going to be losing a part of me.

I've had a sweet tooth for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, growing up in the USSR, my most prominent positive food memory involves these lollipops called "Petushki" (translated to Roosters in English). I don't remember what exactly was so great about this candy poultry, but I remember they made me REALLY happy.

Over the years, I developed a fairly heavy sugar addiction. At the peak of my eating disorder, I ate nothing but Brach's Candy, which I got at various Walgreen's around the city when they still had bulk candy bins. I went for the ones with three layers, one of which had powdered coconut, thinking they were healthier because they contained some fat.

Because of my experiences, I've always been interested in literature about sugar addiction and the negative effects of sugar consumption. Recently, I discovered the work of Nancy Appleton, clinical nutritional and anti-sugar advocate. In her first book, Lick the Sugar Habit, she discusses the consequences of sugar consumption and provides self-help techniques to overcome sugar addiction. She also has a section of sugar free recipes, which I love!

Besides all of the great research and examples of how sugar addiction leads to a variety of diseases, my favorite part of the book were the self-help techniques Nancy Appleton provided. I would like to share some of them with you.

Lick the Sugar Habit Self-Techniques

1. Remove Corn from Your Diet
According to Nancy, since most of the sugar we consume especially in processed food is corn based, most of us are now allergic to sugar. Any form of corn can bring up sugar cravings, whether its cornstarch or corn on the cob. Keep an eye out for corn in your baking powder.

2. Taste Sweetness Without Ingesting Sugar
She suggests using fruit-flavored lip gloss and brushing your teeth to give your taste buds a little zing when you are craving sugar

3. Avoid Coffee
Coffee can lower your blood sugar, which will cause hypoglycemic symptoms like light-headedness, dizziness, and perspiration. The blood sugar drop will lead to a sugar craving.

4. Read Labels
Nowadays it's rare to find sugar as an ingredient on a nutrition label. But you will often see it called by other names. Here are some examples: barley malt, beet sugar, brown sugar, buttered syrup, cane-juice crystals, cane sugar, caramel, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, date sugar, dextran, dextrose, diatase, diastatic malt, ethyl maltol, fructose, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, glucose solids, golden sugar, golden syrup, grape sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, invert sugar, lactose, malt syrup, maltodextrin, maltose, mannitol, molasses, raw sugar, refiner's syrup, sorbitol, sorghum syrup, sucrose, turbinado sugar, and probably many more that I have not mentioned.

5. Substitute Carob for Chocolate
I love this one! I found out I was allergic to chocolate 8 years ago, so I often bake with carob. Nancy provides a wonderful recipe for Spicy Carob Brownies that I want to share with you! I've adapted this recipe to be grain free and vegan. The original recipe calls for rice and quinoa flour instead of the almond, coconut, and grapeskin that I used.

 Spicy Carob Brownies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup carob powder
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup grapeskin flour (Cabernet or Merlot Variety)
2 tsp baking powder (you can make your own without corn)
1 cup well cooked sweet potatoes or yams
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/4 cup water
2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp coconut oil

Process:
1. In a small bowl, mix chia seeds and water and let stand for 10 minutes

2. Combine almond flour, carob powder, coconut flour, grapeskin flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a bowl

3. In a blender, mix sweet potatoes, chia seed gel, coconut oil and ginger and blend until smooth

 4. Add wet ingredients to bowl of dry ingredients and using a mixer mix for until smooth
 

5. Put the batter into a baking dish, I'm using a heart shaped silicone dish

 6. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

7. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack

8. Cut into cubes and enjoy!

9. Enjoy!

Shared at: Simply Sugar Free & Gluten Free

Roasted Smoked Paprika Chicken With Rosemary Scented Root Vegetables

Last week, my teacher at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Joshua Rosenthal, gave a lecture where he discussed making cooking good food easy. I love his saying: "Cook Once, Eat Twice." I've always loved one pot meals because of their convenience and often cook a pot of soup for lunches to take to work and a stew to eat at home for dinner. Doing this, makes healthy eating possible and enjoyable for me. While I love to cook, I know that with kids, jobs, and competing responsibilities, it's not always easy. I have already shared a number of my favorite one pot meals with you already: Beef Heart Bourguignon, Tongue Stew, Grain-Free Plov Style Tongue Stew, and Tongue Stew with Garbanzo Beans, but I am aware that not everyone has access to or even enjoys offal and so I have a recipe for a chicken stew that will surely please.

The dish uses two salts that I am absolutely loving right now: Selena Naturally's Rosemary Celtic Salt and Makai Pure Sea Salt. Celtic Salt is unprocessed and is dried by the sun and the wind, locking in a vast array of vital trace minerals. Paired with rosemary grown on the Northern California Coast, the Rosemary Celtic Sea Salt has a really incredible rosemary flavor that stands out as the vegetable seasoning in this dish. The Makai Pure Sea Salt is also unique and I use this to season the chicken.  This salt is harvested from 2,000 ft underneath the Pacific Ocean floor and has a high mineral content. It has 33% less sodium in comparison to regular table salt and provides 2% of your daily value for calcium and magnesium. I'm grateful to Selina Naturally for sending me these to try, because they really are something special!

 Roasted Smoked Paprika Chicken With Rosemary Scented Root Vegetables
Ingredients:
1 Organic/Pasture Raised Chicken
1 tbsp duck fat/coconut oil/ghee/red palm oil
5 large carrots
2 large parsnips
2 large turnips
2 large onions
2 springs of thyme
1 whole garlic bulb
3 tsp The Spice House Smoked Paprika
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
2 tsp Selena Naturally Rosemary Celtic Sea Salt
2 tsp Selena Naturally Makai Sea Salt

Process:
1. Chop carrots, parsnips, and turnips in to small chunks

2. Cut onions in fourths

3. Insert garlic bulb into chicken cavity

4. Place tbsp of oil at the bottom of a dutch oven

5. Add vegetables and sprinkle with Selena Naturally Rosemary Celtic Sea Salt and mix well to coat vegetables

6. Sprinkle The Spice House Smoked Paprika, pepper and Selena Naturally Makai Sea Salt on top of chicken covering the breasts and thighs

7. Place chicken on top of vegetables

8. Bake at 425 for 90 minutes

9. Enjoy!

 

Shared at: The Polivka Family

Book Review & Giveaway: Practical Paleo

When I started blogging about my 21-Day Detox cleanse in July, I had no idea how much I would learn about diet and nutrition as part of the process of writing about my experiences. I've always been interested in cooking, but recently I have moved towards becoming more educated about the true nutritional value of the food I'm eating. I've been stocking up on cookbooks that are also educational and provide viewpoints on certain ways of eating. Since I have been moving towards becoming completely grain free, I have been very interested in blogs and books that center around the Paleolithic (Paleo) lifestyle. One blogger who I have been following is Diane Sanfilippo, of Balanced Bites and author of the highly informative Practical Paleo.

































I don't often get excited about nutrition and cookbooks, but Practical Paleo is a pretty amazing book. It's not wonder it's been on the New York Times bestseller list for 3 weeks in a row. If you haven't gotten yourself a copy, you are missing out and here are 5 reasons why:

1. It has over 120 easy recipes all that are gluten-,grain-,legume-,dairy- & refined-sugar-free.
The recipes are well organized by meal type: breakfast, sides & salads, treats & sweets, also by protein type. Some delicious recipes include Apple Streusel Egg Muffins, Nori Salmon Handroll, Baked Beets with Fennel, and Nutty Bacon Bark (yes! bacon candy)

2. It has multiple 30-Day Meal Plans to help support recovery from a number of health issues such as autoimmune conditions, digestive health, blood-sugar regulation, thyroid health, cancer recovery, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, fat loss, athletic performance, and general health

Each meal plan has a specific shopping list as well as a list of useful supplements that you could be taking for your condition. Additionally, a symptom checklist allows you to determine which diet is best for you. Finally Practical Paleo provides specific lifestyle suggestions to help you achieve your goals, such as adding more superfoods and avoiding fasting when trying to regulate blood sugar.

3. It has beautiful colorful guides such as: Guide to Paleo Foods, Stocking a Paleo Pantry, and Guide to Food Quality

If you are every confused about what you should be eating, these colorful guides help you on your trip to the grocery store. The Guide to Paleo foods even highlights items that are considered to be nightshades and can aggravate arthritic conditionals such as gout and arthritis. The Guide to Stocking a Paleo Pantry helps you make sure that you have plenty of grab-and-go foods while you are trying to establish your health, reminding you to have canned sardines, coconut milk, and plenty of nuts on hand. Having a well stocked pantry also ensures that if you happen to lose power, like many on the East Coast, you still have plenty nutrient dense foods to enjoy. I have some recipe suggestions here. Finally, the Guide to Food Quality helps explain terms like pastured-raised, cage-free, natural, and naturally raised.

4. It has really pretty pictures. What's a cookbook without amazing photography? I often spend more time looking at the pictures in cookbook then I do actually cooking the recipes. Practical Paleo has it's share of food p0rn!

5. Finally, Practical Paleo doesn't just provide delicious easy recipes, Diane Sanfillipo explains why "everything we've been taught about good nutrition is wrong."

Practical Paleo dissects all of the recent US Dietary Guidelines such as increasing low-fat dairy intake while limiting full-fat, using oils instead of solid fats, and consuming grains. She explains in layman's terms why these recommendations are causing Americans to not only be overweight but to also be very unhealthy. Diane also provides a science lesson on how our bodies process carbs, proteins, and fats and why the Paleo diet works for not just weight loss but also improved health.

I was really impressed with this book. Not only is it well written and beautifully illustrated, but it provides important, relevant information. I can attest to how much of a difference a paleo-centered diet can make. In the months that I have been grain free, I have never felt better. Practical Paleo will now be my go-to book for easy, simple, and quick Paleo recipes. Practical Paleo is available on Amazon for $23.97! You can go get yourself a copy or you can win a copy in my Practical Paleo Giveaway! 

To be entered in the contest, you must first be a subscriber to my blog. You can subscribe via email on the top right corner. Next follow Rafflecopter's easy instructions!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One Last Halloween Recipe: Ghoulish Green Sunflower Coconut Cookies

I'm not ready to say goodbye to Halloween just yet. I know, I know, I need to start concentrating on Thanksgiving and even Hanukkah, but I'm just not ready! Superstorm Sandy has put many people's lives on hold and in many areas Halloween has been postponed for the weekend. I wish we postponed Halloween for the weekend so that I had some time to get my act together.

When I'm not cooking and writing for the blog, I actually have a 9-5 job. I work for an Internet retailer of consumer products and Q4 (Oct, Nov, Dec) is our most busy time. As we head into the depths of our busy season, I'm finding it pretty hard to balance my family, my house, my blog, and my overall responsibilities. Something had to go this year and since my daughter is 3 and doesn't really understand, we kind of skipped Halloween this year.

Growing up, I couldn't wait to go trick-or-treating to collect large grocery bags of candy. One year, in Brooklyn, I filled 2 whole bags of sweet, sour, and even salty confections. Since my first trick-or-treating experience was when I was 6, I'm thinking I can still hide our daughter from this ritual for a couple of more years. I'm glad to get reprieve from figuring out how to allow her to enjoy this important American pastime and how to get her to trade candy for something more healthy.

To trade the "good" stuff for some actual good stuff, I have prepared for her a fun recipe: Ghoulish Green Sunflower Coconut Cookies. These cookies are made with no sugar and no eggs, plus they are gluten and grain free (just a little baking powder). Interesting fact: Sunflower seeds contain acid called chlorogenic acid and, when mixed with baking soda under certain temperatures, it will cause the sunflower seeds to turn green. This is a totally harmless chemical reaction that creates a wonderfully fun looking and tasty Haloween cookie! 

I adapted the recipe from a cookbook I recently bought, Nourishing Meals, by Alissa Segersten & Tom Malterre. Tom gave a talk for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition about the Elimination Diet that I love and they also have a blog, The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen, that I absolutely love. The book features lots of healthy gluten free recipes including smoothies, entrees, cookies, and pies. The recipe for Coconut Almond Sugar Cookies caught my eye, but I had run out of almond flour and had just soaked and dehydrated sunflower seeds, so I decided to substitute. The result is a delicious nutty sugar free, gluten free, vegan cookie that will satisfy any little monster.


Ghoulish Green Sunflower Coconut Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup Sunflower Seed Flour (I used this recipe from Empowered Sustenance) 
1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup arrowroot powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder (corn free)
1/8 tsp Bright Earth Foods Himalayan Salt
6 tbsp Bright Earth Foods Vanilla Coconut Oil
6 tbsp unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 tsp lemon zest
25-30 drops of stevia

Process:
1. Mix all dry ingredients in a food process with an s-blade, pulsing for 90 seconds

2. Add wet ingredients and mix until a lump of dough is formed

3. Remove ball of dough and refrigerate for 1 hour

4. Either roll out dough between two sheets of unbleached parchment paper to desired thickness or using a small ice cream scoop create walnut sized balls

5. If rolling dough, use a cooking cutter to cut out shapes. If using walnut size balls, then press down until flat on parchment paper

6. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes

7. Let cool (cookies will turn green once they cool)

8. Enjoy!


Shared at: Too Many Jars in the Kitchen