It’s New Years Eve! My goodness this year has flown by for me. Has it for anyone else? I have so much to be thankful for and will continue to thank and praise God for the many blessings he’s bestowed on us.
Earlier this evening, I made this simple salad with avocado, spinach, romaine lettuce and tomatoes.
Avocado Salad
I ground up a few herbs and spices using my mortar and pestle and pronounced it, done! Simple? Yes, but so delicious and nutritious. Who needs an elaborate meal when you can fill up on something quick and delightful.
Yesterday, I made a bean soup that I pureed and my daughter has been devouring that. I should have made more since there isn’t too much left. Sighs… you’d think I’d learn, right?
Back in August, I prepared my fermented sauerkraut, check out the post if you want to see the entire process I went through to create my own kraut.
Recycled photo from my August post on fermented sauerkraut
I made over 15 pounds of kraut using my super heavy 30+ pound crock. This crock is made by TSM and is a 15L Fermenting Crock. Since it’s a fermented crock system, you can’t smell the produce as it ferments.
Four months later, I’m finally getting around to eating some of that delicious food. First, this does not taste like the traditional sauerkraut that you purchase in the stores. I added a lot of different spices and herbs to this blend. Garlic, whole black peppercorns and whole cardamom were just a few of the many different herbs and spices that I added to this yummy kraut and I must say that I’m pleased with this combination.
Fermented spicy sauerkraut
In the above picture you can see me eating about 1/2 cup of the kraut and I must say that this turned out really good. My daughter even likes it a lot.
Since I’m a firm believer in cleansing, the herbs/spices that were added to this blend, were solely added because of their healing benefits. Was it effective? I would like to think so. I know that yesterday I had the ticklings of a cold, but now that’s gone thanks to eating a big bowl of fermented kraut. Normally, on the rare occasion I feel the symptoms, of a cold I’ll reach for garlic, ginger or oil of oregano, but this time I simple ate some fermented foods. For those who don’t know, fermented foods (and beverages) can be very effective at combating common ailments.
A few hours ago, I prepared my washed dry black beans in my eight (8) qt. Presto pressure cooker. I can’t stop talking about how much I love this kitchen appliance. It shortens the cooking time significantly. Twenty minutes later, my dried black beans were cooked to perfection!
Since, I foresee some very busy days in my future, I prepared an entire bag of the beans. The bulk of the black beans will be frozen and set aside for future meals; however, today I made this dish.
Black Beans with stir fried vegetables
It’s a simple dish of black beans and vegetables. See how colorful it is? It’s so good for you too. The vegetables added were broccoli and carrots. I also added ginger, onions, freshly ground Himalayan sea salt, cumin and coriander.
Bean w veggies and soup
To accompany that, I added tomato soup. I’d made this soup on Monday, and it still tasted like the tomatoes had been recently picked from the garden. While my daughter feasted on the black bean and veggies, I curled up with a the mug of tomato soup that you see above. Savory, rich and simply delightful. While my daughter does eat meat, she much prefers veggie dishes and the meat dishes she does eat is served as a condiment. While some might think this is because I am the one preparing the meals, even when we go out to various events if she does select a meat dish, it will have vegetables.
My daughter and I love cauliflower! Especially cauliflower that’s freshly picked from the garden… nothing compares to the fresh slightly nutty taste.
Cauliflower and soybean stir fry
A few weeks ago, I made the above dish. In addition to the cauliflower it has soybeans, tomatoes, carrots, garlic and onions. We don’t regularly consume soybeans. In fact months and sometime years have gone by without us eating them, however we had a bag of soybeans in the home and I decided to add them to the above dish. I must say it was a wonderful choice.
With the addition of a few herbs and spices, that were freshly ground with my granite mortar and pestle, this dish was fragrant and flavorful. My daughter came back to it later to consume more. Next time, I make something similar, I’ll puree and use as a sandwich spread.
Lately, I’ve been making a lot of fried rice dishes. Vegan and nonvegan have been made in our house several times within the last week or so…
I’m not sure why the frequency has increased, but the meals have been amazingly fragrant and the food hasn’t lasted long. I made this a few weeks ago and as before my daughter requested this in her Zojirushi lunch jar. She loves it and takes it to school daily and brings home an empty lunch jar daily. Best $60+ I’ve ever spent on a lunch box, and well worth the cost since she has not wanted her usual Wednesday pizza that’s served at school. Her Zojirushi lunch jar has already paid for itself, and she loves that she gets to eat hot meals for her school lunch. There’s no reason to busy special food that won’t spoil while cold to put into her lunches since her food stays hot for several hours in her insulated lunch jar.
Early this week, my daughter asked if we could make pizza. Of course we can!
My daughter is a great helper, she ground up the various ingredients in our mortar and pestle while I got the dough out of our bread maker.
Homemade pizza ready to be slid into the oven
We added a lot of veggies to the pizza. I did not feel like making a homemade pizza sauce and so I sliced fresh tomatoes onto the dough.
Piping hot pizza
We also added spinach, I would have much preferred adding the greens for the last few moments of pizza baking, but my daughter wanted to add them when we slid the pizza into the oven. So how was it? Well… my daughter raved about this pizza, but she did agree that in the future the spinach should only be added in the last few minutes. I’m sure we’ll make something similar soon.
I truly enjoy eating simple meals, the past week or so I’ve been consuming a lot of raw broccoli.
With the above dish I added a tiny amount of a homemade spicy ginger sauce to the broccoli. That was great too. But this broccoli was so sweet and delicious I didn’t use much. I only sprinkled the sauce on a few pieces.
Pink grapefruit is another favorite and something that I enjoy eating plain. I enjoy the bitter sweetness of the grapefruit and make sure I eat it a several times each month.
. Since it’s a fermented crock system, you can’t smell the produce as it ferments.
