Salmon Head Soup

Try telling your family "Salmon Head Soup" when they ask what's for dinner... The reactions you get will be only slightly less awesome than how it tastes.

I bought a salmon head at the farmer's market this weekend because it cost $1 and I am a sucker for almost free wild-caught protein. I asked the man what I was supposed to do with the gigantic thing, and he said people usually make soup out of it. I did a little research, and it seems many people consider the head to be the most flavorful part of the salmon, even though there isn't much meat there. The perfect way to extract this flavor is to simmer it in soup. Using what I had on hand I came up with this recipe - it really was surprisingly flavorful! Once we convinced our kids to take their first bites, Salmon Head Soup quickly went from something to be dreaded to "This is four times yummy."

SALMON HEAD SOUP

Ingredients:
2-3 T olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
2" peeled ginger, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, crushed through a garlic press
1 large bay leaf
1 piece of Kombu Seaweed (I buy dried Kombu at Whole Foods)
1 large salmon head
1 lemon, quartered
2 T coconut oil
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 c diced fresh parsley
2 T lemon juice
2-3 cups chopped greens such a bok choy
1 t liquid aminos
salt and pepper

1.) Heat olive oil in large soup pot. Cook onion, celery, and carrots until the onion becomes translucent. Add the ginger and garlic. Stir and cook till garlic is fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add kombu, bay leaf, lemon (squeeze each quarter into pot before dropping it in) and salmon head (yes, eyes and all!!!) Add 1/2 t salt and a few dashes of freshly ground pepper. Add enough water to submerge everything and give it a stir. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over medium heat about 20 minutes, until the fish is cooked.

2.) Using a mesh strainer, carefully remove the fish head from the pot. It will be very tender and you don't want weird pieces of bone or fins to fall into the pot. Pick all of the meat off of the head (if you are squeamish have someone else do this part. Or maybe don't make this soup.) and set aside. This is easier than it sounds - it is very obvious which parts are edible and which parts aren't.

3.) Remove the lemon, kombu, and bay leaf from pot and discard. Using the same mesh strainer, strain all the vegetables out of the cooking liquid, RESERVING ALL OF THE LIQUID. You just want the veggies to be separate from the liquid. At this point you will have a plate of salmon meat, a bowl of cooked vegetables, and a bowl of stock.

4.) Using 2 cups of the reserved cooking liquid, cook up 1 cup of dry quinoa. This will be served with your soup and tastes really good cooked in the salmon stock!

5.) Once your quinoa is going, melt the coconut oil over medium heat in your now-empty soup pot. Add the brown rice flour and make a roux, stirring until it is nice and browned. Add 1 cup of the reserved cooking liquid and stir to combine - it should become thick and bubbly pretty quickly. Continue adding liquid until the broth is the consistency you want - I went for a broth slightly less thick than stew broth because I wanted the soup to be more chowdery than chicken-soupy. (I think I used about 2 1/2 cups of liquid but didn't keep track.)

6.) Return the reserved salmon meat and vegetables to the soup pot with your broth. Stir in liquid aminos and chopped greens. Cover and allow to cook about 7 minutes until the greens are wilted. (If you think there isn't enough meat in your soup, you could add a can of salmon at this point - I buy canned salmon at Costco and it tastes really wonderful.)

7.) Just before serving, stir in fresh parsley and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and serve over the cooked quinoa quinoa, garnished with more chopped parsley.

Savory Stuffed Pumpkin with Lamb

This year I grew 8 pumpkins, saved 4 from the gophers, and ended up with 2 to eat after the other two mysteriously went soft and mushy. I have been hoarding my little pumpkins in the pantry trying to decide what to do with them for months. Normally I turn pumpkins into desserts - pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice cookies... But this year I can not eat sugar, and I wasn't about to sacrifice my precious gourds for the sugary enjoyment of my family. I decided to make something savory, but what? I assumed they would make their way into some sort of pureed soup, until my sister-in-law told me about this recipe for stuffed pumpkin.

The recipe looks amazing and my sis-in-law said they loved it, but when I read it through there were a few problems. Bread. Cheese. Bacon. Heavy cream. None of which I can eat. Also: "cook for 2 hours." I had one. So I ditched the probably-amazingly-delicious recipe and decided to wing it with what I had lying around. The result: a grain-free, dairy-free, anti-candida-diet friendly stuffed pumpkin recipe that was TO-DIE-FOR and pretty quick to make. I don't often brag about things I throw together last-minute like that, but this was different. My youngest son, who literally begs me to not feed him vegetables every day, CRIED when I told him I wasn't going to share the left-overs with him. Yes, he cried. And no, I was not kidding. I didn't share the left-overs; I ate them all myself. Even if you don't have pumpkins of your own lying around I'm sure you can find some - make sure they are sugar pie pumpkins or a similar small-sized pumpkin. This would probably work well with acorn squash or any other winter squash. Let me know if you end up making it!

SAVORY STUFFED PUMPKINS WITH LAMB

Ingredients:
2 small Sugar Pie Pumpkins, about 6-7 inches in diameter
salt & pepper
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1/2 large onion, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1/2 large red bell pepper, diced
2 tsp. Herbs de Provence
1/2 tsp. thyme
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lb. ground lamb
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
2 cups chopped beet greens (or any other greens you have on hand)
2 Tbsp. finely diced fresh parsley
grated parmesan cheese (optional)

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pop the stem off both pumpkins and cut each in half, top to bottom. Scoop out the guts, saving the seeds (some for next year's garden, the rest to roast). Sprinkle the inside of each pumpkin half lightly with salt and pepper, then place face down on a greased cookie sheet. Put in the oven and bake about 40 minutes, or until the pumpkin flesh is starting to get soft.

2.) Meanwhile, warm olive oil in a large pan on the stovetop. Add onion and celery, cooking till onion becomes translucent. Add bell pepper and continue cooking 5 minutes more. Stir in Herbs de Provence and thyme; cook and stir 30 seconds. Add 2 cloves of garlic and continue to stir, cooking until the garlic becomes fragrant.

3.) Stir in lamb, 1 t. salt and 1/2 t. pepper. Brown the meat, stirring frequently. Stir in the beet greens and cook till they are wilted. Remove stuffing mixture from heat and stir in the parsley.

4.) Remove the pumpkins from the oven and CAREFULLY turn them right-side-up. They will be very hot and probably release steam when you flip them so be careful!!! Fill each half with stuffing mixture, topping with grated cheese if desired. Return to the oven and bake an additional 8-10 minutes, or till cheese is melted and the pumpkin flesh is soft and beginning to caramelize around the edges.

5.) Remove from oven and let sit 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

NOTE: This recipe fed my husband, two young children, and myself with the afore-mentioned small amount of coveted left-overs. If you are making this for more than 2 adults you might want to double the recipe!

Another Note: To roast your pumpkin seeds (don't you dare chuck those gems in the garbage can!!!) rinse them well to remove the pumpkin goo, pat dry with a kitchen towel, and spread on a cookie sheet. Spray lightly with olive oil and season with salt, cumin, and granulated garlic. Roast in a 375 degree oven until they start to pop - you'll hear them. Remove from oven and leave on the hot tray until cool. Yum!

Belated Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I was reminded that Thankfulness is just as much a decision as it is an emotion. It is easy to celebrate Thanksgiving when everything is going to plan and you find yourself facing a long weekend to spend relaxing with friends and family surrounded by delicious food. At those times, thankfulness is an emotion, something that wells up out of you without bidding. It is easy. And such has been the case with all of my Thanksgivings to date.

This Thanksgiving, however, I found myself quite sick. After a month of ever-increasing symptoms of Candida, I woke up on Thanksgiving feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. I follow an extremely strict diet of mostly vegetables, chicken, and fish, and this has helped me make great strides towards recovering from Candida infection. However, little bits of cheating here and there coupled with stress and not getting enough sleep had taken a toll on my too-sensitive system. Needless to say, THANKFUL was not the emotion at the top of my list. I actually felt quite sorry for myself. It just didn't seem fair that everyone else in the world could sit down to a delicious meal while I had to eat only the salad, and, if I was feeling crazy, a small piece of turkey. Mashed Potatoes? Too starchy. Stuffing? Full of gluten. Papa's famous green-bean casserole? Nope, there's dairy in there. Sweet Potato Pie? Forget it. So I followed the rules and ate a gigantic plate of salad with turkey on top, and woke up the day after Thanksgiving feeling even worse. And the death-knell to any residual feelings of thankfulness: when I went out to water my glorious patch of brussels sprouts, I saw that the chickens had gotten in through the protective fence and eaten every single sprout and half the leaves off all my plants.

As I trudged my sick sorry self back to the house I found myself thinking dark thoughts about thankfulness. I am not thankful this year! And then I stopped. What in the world was wrong with me? Here I was in my new cozy sweats walking outside in the most glorious California weather, surrounded by happy chickens, my two healthy kids playing together in the sand pit, my amazing husband doing the dishes, with the full use of my body and mind, and I was telling myself and the world that I wasn't thankful??? Shame on me.

So, in the absence of thankful feelings, I resolved to be thankful anyways. Yes, I felt sick but I wouldn't use that as an excuse to be grouchy or tune out my family. No, I couldn't eat any Thanksgiving left-overs, but I wouldn't complain or feel sorry for myself. I would take the necessary steps to feel better (in this case it meant going on a 3-day green juice cleanse: YUCK), but wouldn't paint myself the victim or broadcast my misery to those around me. I would bask in the late-November sunshine and be happy that I live in a place where brussels sprouts can be bought if the winter crop is decimated by rogue fowl. And, as has happened so many times in my life, when I made the decision to be thankful, the emotions followed.

Today, as we launched back into real life, I am thankful for my darling family, my super-hot husband, our too-small but cozy house, and the fact that my 3 day juice cleanse is OVER! I am thankful that I didn't wake up with a headache, ringing ears, and a rash for the first time in over a month. I am thankful that God has committed to change me from a self-centered person to someone a little more wholesome. And I am thankful that this morning I harvested the last of my tomatoes and the first of my broccoli. It may be a few days late, but I am thankful. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Healthy Raw Breakfast

About a year ago I found out that I had a severe Candida infection. I'll spare you the gory details, of which there are many, and say that after many unsuccessful treatments by traditional doctors, I ended up taking matters into my own hands. I did extensive research on the disease and found that it is best treated by a very specific diet combined with various natural anti-fungal supplements. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I have learned a lot over the last year about Candida and how to take care of myself so that my symptoms stay away and I don't feel miserable.

While I have gotten much less sensitive to foods, I am still on a gluten-free, sugar-free, yeast-free, fermented-free diet, which pretty much eliminates all traditional breakfast items. I also try to minimize "animal proteins" in my diet - yes, the girl who raises chickens to eat has to be careful not to eat too much meat. *sigh* Breakfast was one of the biggest hurdles for me as I adjusted to my new lifestyle: I'll eat salads for lunch and dinner until the cows come home, but veggies for breakfast??? That felt a little too hard-core. But I have to say that after over a year of eating this way I actually look forward to my big bowl of steamed zucchini and kale with roasted almonds on top. This diet is one of the reasons I've become so devoted to my garden. Eating so many vegetables has made me very aware of the taste difference between kale I buy at Safeway and kale I grow in my garden and eat minutes after it is picked. The same goes for pretty much every single veggie out there - the freshly grown organic stuff is miles tastier. Plus, I am saving quite a bit of money by growing my vegetables rather than buying them. A single packet of kale seeds, which grows several months worth of kale, costs less than one bunch of organic kale at the supermarket.

Now, I never intended this to be a Candida blog, but I have realized that much of my inspiration to "live off the land" have come because of my journey to get healthy. They are somehow intertwined, and sometimes I can't talk about one without including the other. Before I had Candida, I was not at all interested in cooking. I made recipes that were easy and relatively healthy because that was my job and, well, we had to eat. After Candida, every meal became a challenge and adventure. I realized that if I was going to be able to eat things that actually tasted good and didn't make me sick, I would have to create my own recipes using the foods that I don't react to. Adding to the challenge were my meat-and-potatoes husband and a couple of young kids who would be eating what I cooked. I've learned about vegetables and other foods I never before knew existed: kholrabi, sunchokes, amaranth, adzuki beans, dulse... and I've become someone who actually loves cooking and looks forward to it every day. So I guess in a few small ways, getting sick has been good for me.

All the recipes I post here on the blog are recipes I can eat, unless I specify otherwise. That means that they are gluten free, sugar free, lactose free, yeast free, and fermentation free. As my friend Pamela has said: "If Heather can eat it, I can eat it." And I hope you can eat it too. I know I'm not the only person struggling to find yummy healthy foods to eat, and I'm hoping that I can help inspire you to not only eat some new foods, but to try growing them as well. (I just found this recipe, pictured above, for chia seed porridge, and it is on the menu for this week. Looks super yummy!)

P.S. In case you are wondering, this is the e-book I found to be most helpful in treating my own case of Candida, and this website has been invaluable in my ongoing quest to stay healthy.