Soaked and Brined Black Beans

It's been a long time

I shouldn't have left you

Without a dope read to munch to...

I've been busy procreating, ukulele'ing, moving, homeschooling (briefly), volunteering, childraising, PTO'ing, adulting, and mom'ing for the last couple of years and this blog has taken a back burner. I've got almost 10 or so recipes sitting in my draft folder but they are still gathering virtual dust. Sigh.


But-- 

I was struggling for a savory bean side dish for a communal burrito potluck for our annual campout. When/if I make beans, I go to animal fat for the flavor boost. Since our Holistic Moms chapter had Muslim families participating, I needed something halal so my go to lard and (Buddhist) duck fat were not going to make the cut. (And I didn't have time to run to the local halal butcher...)

Then I remembered...

Beans, beans the magic fruit, the more you eat....

Kombu which would give me a savory/umami boost as well as help breakdown the indigestibles (toot-source) like oligosaccharides and phytic acid. I am not even going there with the soak-no soak debate. I know what my gut feels like. Which my family has now dubbed mom bombs. Soaking is just better for me.

Along the way, I discovered brining for beans and of course, I am a big pressure cooker proponent. Because: from phrozen to Phở in under an hour is too damn easy. I upgraded to a Kuhn Duromatic 12 qt when I birthed the big little because that's a lot more people to feed and I was tired of having to make two batches of phở with the 6 qt because the bones take up half the pot. I still keep my 6 qt Fissler because I inherited it from my 

bà ngoại | grandmother and it's handy for grains, side dishes, and small quantities.

I pre-date the Instant Pot so I don't have a review or a rave, but believe me I am eyeballing it. I only have to babysit the pressure cooker for less than an hour at most, but the prospect of set & forget it is very tempting because I am very forgetful...)

Anyhow, I cobbled together a recipe from various ideas with Cuban inspiration. And it was like sooooooo good. 
I got rave reviews and recipe requests from folks, so... here's the recipe, Samrana! 
( I made 2.5 lbs for 30+ people including littles which left me with maybe 1/4 of a pot leftover, this is a reduced quantity). 

Some ingredient notes: my kid doesn't like the tannic-ity of olive oil, so I mixed it with avocado oil. I used a little fresh garlic that I had on hand, but mainly I rely on powdered or dried/minced garlic because I have issues with digesting fresh garlic unless it is cooked AF. I wanna say I got the kombu powder from Frontier, but I think they don't carry it any longer. You can substitute dried kombu instead or omit it. Um, I eyeball quantities, so adjust to taste!

We were camping there was no way to pretty stage beans.

BRINE BEANS
1 lb beans (I used organic black turtle beans)
3 tbs of sea salt
4 qts water

Soak 8 hrs to 24 hours. Drain beans.

Ingredients

EV olive oil + avocado oil
1 organic sweet onion, chopped
1 tsp organic garlic powder

1 tsp kombu powder or 4 inch strip of dried kombu

dash of Red Boat fish sauce

1 tsp organic cumin powder

2 bay leaves

2 qts water

chopped cilantro to garnish

Splash a super generous amount of oil in the pressure cooker. Sauté the onions and garlic until translucent. Add kombu powder, fish sauce, cumin and bay leaves and sauté briefly until aromatic. Toss in the beans. Cover with water, lid it, and bring to a boil. Cook at pressure for 4 minutes for soaked black beans (all other beans consult this chart for cooking time). Turn off the stove. Let it depressurize naturally, approx 10 minutes. Taste, add salt or other seasonings as needed. Top with chopped cilantro.

BOOM. DONE. 

Really, that is it. I love my pressure cooker! 

I have NO idea how long this takes in an Instant Pot. I know that it would take 3-4 hours in a VitaClay and that is why hands down, my pressure cooker is my go to because I suffer from the inability to meal plan.

[Full disclosure: I am now an Amazon Associate. Yes, I assimilated. All kidding aside, all my labor is unremunerated. Both as a mom and as cook. Don't get me wrong, I like getting paid in gratitude and sticky kisses from the littles, but it would also be nice to be compensated even a pittance for the fraction of the work I do IRL. I've made enough to buy coffee from individual affiliate links so it really is a bit ridiculous. And alot of the links I have are not remunerated, like Frontier or articles, blogs, etc. So for what it is worth, for less than the price of a cup of coffee, you can support my labor which is vastly undervalued!]

Dijon Vinaigrette Coleslaw & Jamaican Jerk ribs

I have never particularly liked coleslaw growing up. I really despised the one that we'd often get at KFC.  I think it was the creamy-sweetness that turned me off. Maybe this is because Viet coleslaws are not creamy. At any rate, this all changed back in my wheat eating days when my good friend Tuyen introduced me to Bakesale Betty's unholy fried chicken sandwich which was made with a vinaigrette-based coleslaw. It's damn good. I'd pick out all the onions because I was allergic to raw onions back then (the sulfur).  But it opened up my culinary world to non-Viet, non-creamy coleslaws.

It's grilling weather so I picked up some nice country ribs (butt) from Whole Foods; this is a flavorful fatty cut from sustainably raised pork and in the bulk pack (3 lbs+) it's a reasonably priced $4.99/lb comparable to what one would get buying direct from the farmer.  I used a Jamaican Jerk recipe from Bruce Aidell's Complete Book of Pork; I make it mild because my kid doesn't like spicy and we serve with organic habanero sauce on the side.

My favorite coleslaw recipe hands down is Jeremy Fox's Apple Savoy Cabbage which I make with organic fuji apples; for whatever reason, organic apples have been hard to come by this year.  So sans apples, I had to do something different.  I threw this coleslaw together because I happened to have a savoy cabbage in the fridge from a few weeks back.  The coleslaw perfectly complemented the Jamaican Jerk ribs.  

I like savoy cabbage because it is thinner leaves which soften quicker meaning that you can eat it sooner, more digestible.  I toss the shredded cabbage with grey sea salt similar to how one would prepare cabbage for fermenting (sauerkraut or kimchi).  The salt begins to break down the tough cellulose in the cabbage, making it more digestible.  I use the America's Test Kitchen method of shredding (see which ensures you don't end up with large sections of rib.

I recently started using estate grown organic certified olive oil direct from the farmer, because I boycott the mafia (also why I never ate at Phở Hoà chain even before I stopped eating at phở restaurants).  The 2013 Moonshadow Grove Mission Olive Oil is very spicy so when my daughter is eating, I use mild tasting avocado oil.


Two recipes below--Jerk ribs and dijon vinaigrette coleslaw.

Jerk Marinated Ribs 

(adapted from Bruce Aidell's Complete Book of Pork)

• 1 dried ancho chile, deseeded
• 1 sweet onion, quartered
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tbs ground allspice
• 1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
• 2 tbs organic coconut palm sugar
• 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp fennel
• 1 tsp celtic sea salt

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and blend to form a paste. Slather it on the rubs. In the best case scenario, you would marinade this the night before. In my usual, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants scenario, I grill it when the grill is ready. ("I" being the royal "I" here as you see my husband is doing the actual grilling wearing the new apron I waxed for him for Father's Day.)

Dijon Vinaigrette Coleslaw

4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head of savoy cabbage (approx 1.5 lbs)
• 1/2 tbs of grey sea salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil or avocado oil
• 3 tbs of organic raw apple cider vinegar (Trader Joe's, Azure Standard, or Bragg's are all excellent sources)
• 1 tbs of whole grain Dijon mustard (Trader Joe's has a nice one)
• freshly ground grains of paradise or black pepper
• pinch of grey sea salt

Quarter the head of cabbage.  Cut and discard the core.  Thinly slice the cabbage perpendicular to the center rib.  Toss in a bowl with 1/2 tbs of grey sea salt.  

Mix together the remaining ingredients and toss over the shredded cabbage.  Let sit at least 10-15 minutes prior to serving.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Rice, Rice, Baby! Sprouted brown rice

This post is for my friends Kyung Jin & Tina who inspired me to explain in the first place.  A picture is worth a thousand words, and a blog post is worth a thousand more and you know I can talk your ear off, so this is efficiency at work for ya!  Nary a klingon reference to be had.  And its free!  (Gotta love the new knowledge economy, unless of course one is an unpaid blogger... sigh.)

Organic brown rice (L to R) dried rice grain; soaked overnight; soaked and sprouted

RICE, RICE BABY

Rice is one of the fundamental staples of Asian diets from mythological times.  Paleoethnobotanists consider Southeast Asia to be the cradle of rice cultivation back when "continents known as Pangaea and Gondwanaland still existed."

I grew up on bowls and bowls of fragrant white jasmine rice.  White rice is machine milled removing the bran and the germ (rice DNA repository), and has recently been vilified as being stripped and nutritionally empty, spiking the blood sugar with empty carbohydrates.  

Even more recently, all grain has become a fairly new nutritional controversy.  By eating the low-saturated fat Standard American Diet (SAD), American folks are eating more carbohydrates and refined grains in particular to compensate for the calories.  The issue is that refined carbs (white flour, white rice, white sugar, well all sugar really) are a quick source of energy and quickly convert to sugar (glucose) in our bloodstream.  Too much sugar is the devil (okay, not the devil but can be the root cause of a lot of chronic diseases).  

Gluten-free diets don't escape from this problem entirely either.  The major mistake most folks make when switching from SAD to gluten-free is to swap out one highly refined grain-based carb (wheat) for another highly refined grain-based carb (rice, etc).  Highly refined, high carbohydrate diets will (eventually) kill you no matter which kind of grain.  Gluten-free works best when it is whole food, real food based.

Xena is HANGRY!
My kid calls her Xena the Lawyer Princess

One of the major differences between the Paleo/Primal diets and Weston Price (WAPF) is grain (the other differences as far as I can tell are saturated fat and dairy).  Paleo diet excludes grain and WAPF promotes soaked and sprouted grains.  As I've stated before, I'm not very interested in branding myself as an adherent to xyz nutritional diet and the territorial posturing that comes with it.  I'm interested in what works for my body and for my family's health.  On this issue, while I share a certain affinity with the Paleo/Primal diet, I do still eat grains (and saturated fat) though we eat fairly low grain.  I did an anti-inflammatory elimination diet for a year or so and then tried grain-free/paleo, but it exacerbated my blood sugar.  When one is waking 2-3 times a night hungry (and not-pregnant) and spending one's waking hours being very hangry, that is one's body sending a very clear message.  So on the issue of grain, I personally lean towards WAPF and my ancestral roots.

At the turn of the 20th century, Dentist Weston Price conducted a global exploration of the impact of processed foods on dental health (malnutrition, cavities, dental & jaw malformation) and concluded that nutrition and health are intrinsically linked; dental issues are symptomatic of systemic health.  Now, it's important to note he was looking at refined grains (white rice, bleached wheat, white sugar) of the industrial era vs traditional native foods (whole foods, whole grains/starches).

GOT RICE?

Previously I've mentioned, I believe the universalizing generalization of the "ancestral" nutritional diets ignores cultural/regional biome specificity & context.  Not all cavemen/natives are alike.  Biological anthropologists/archeologists/paleobotanists (i.e. people who actually research paleothic human societies as a full-time living) indicate that  plant-based foods--including grains/starches--comprise the majority of the calories in a hunter/gatherer ("starchivore") diet because the women (gatherers) are more consistently successful.  Being an anthropologist by training if not by profession/trade, I decided to look into the archeology of the ancestral Viet diet (in the Red River Delta).

• 16,000-20,000BP  (Hoabinh era) Hunter & Gatherer; limestone cave dwellers.  Diet consists of mollusks, fish, nuts, berries, roots, fungi, vegetables, wild grains, mammals.  The major protein snails, fruits or nuts were the source of daily nutrition needs of Hoabinhian food strategy.
• 6000 to 3000 BP (DaBut era) Transitional Hunter & Gatherer wood settlements on alluvial plains.  Diet consists of bivalve shellfish, nuts, fruit; first evidence for domestication of dog, pig and water buffalo (which are used for rice cultivation)
• 4000 years ago Agrarian--transition to primarily rice cultivation 
• Pre-industrialization.  I haven't sourced records of this from Viet Nam yet, but Thailand is an interesting comparable case study.  Thailand wasn't colonized by the West and rural areas did not experience the industrial exploitation that we see in VN. Modern machine mills producing polished white rice were not introduced until the 1950s and available mostly to the wealthy.  Poor folks ate the more nutritious hand-milled rice which did not remove the bran or germ in its entirety.

If one looks at the actual archeological research of the prehistoric era in Southeast Asia, rice does not lead to dental caries/cavities in the same way that maize does.  (I don't know when when hand-milling was introduced, suffice to presume that this is unrefined or at the most, partially milled rice). 

The agricultural period has long been recognized to have been a very important period in human prehistory.  Its timing and consequences, including the effects on human health, have been extensively researched.  In recent decades, this has included the idea that there is a universal positive correlation between the adoption of agriculture based on a carbohydrate staple crop and dental caries prevalences.  This is mainly based on evidence from America, where maize was the staple crop.  On the basis of evidence from prehistoric skeletal samples from a  series of prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia, this correlation does not appear to apply in areas of the world where the stale crop is rice.  Although we have looked only at dental caries, we suggest caution be applied in the drawing of inferences about substance changes from dental health.  Patterns reflecting the adoption of one starchy staple are not necessarily applicable to all such crops. (Source)

I personally don't condone the B-word.

So brown rice is not the same beast as wheat or corn.  That said, I don't presume to know whether brown rice is going to work for your body and health.  You have to figure that out and you do you.  For me and mine, organic brown rice is firmly entrenched in our ancestral and modern tradition.

I've mentioned in my Ancestral Foodways post the changes in my personal rice eating history:

I went from eating white jasmine rice every day 1-2 times a day to eating brown rice, then organic brown rice every day to now eating organic brown rice maybe 2-3 times a week and soaking and sprouting the rice...

Me and my beloved started eating brown rice maybe 7+ years ago to be healthier, but since brown rice still has the bran (and therefore all the fiber and nutrients), it is a lot denser, chewier, and frankly, not as tasty to eat.  A few years back my husband who was primary cook when my daughter was a baby through toddlerhood noted that soaking the brown rice made a big difference in the taste, texture, edibility.  So we started incorporating that into our cooking when we could remember.   Rice is after all dried for storage as a part of its harvest production, so soaking reconstitutes the grain and this should be considered a minimal step in the consumption of brown rice.

In the last few months, I've learned about sprouting grains & nuts and applied sprouting practices to rice:

soaking and sprouting ... 2-3 days to reduce the anti-nutrients like phytic acid which are inherent in all seeds and to leach out the arsenic from soil contamination that is endemic to all arable land all over the world; seeds contain all the genetic information for new life, so they have innate self-defense in the form of anti-nutrients like phytic acid.  Sprouting changes the rice from a seed to a plant and releasing its nutritional value. (Ancestral Foodways)

Since texture is a part of taste, this means sprouted brown rice (aka germinated brown rice, GABA brown rice--for the amino acid GABA that is released by sprouting, or hatsuga genmai) tastes better, with a softer bite.  Sprouted rice needs less water to cook than unsprouted rice.  

Sprouted rice is not as convenient as white rice.  It takes planning and forethought, not something I can always spare.  It is however hands down way more nutritious and definitely tastier than unsoaked, unsprouted brown rice.  So a couple of weeks ago, I realized I can make a mega-batch and freeze it so I will always have sprouted rice on hand.  (DUH!)  Theoretically I suppose sprouted rice can be dehydrated (I have seen this being sold as a highly marked up product), but you'd have to soak the rice again to reconstitute the grain and I'm sure that takes several hours/overnight.  You should probably save the sprouted rice in smaller portions.  For us, a family of three, I make ~3 cups which lasts us a several days.  This method below therefore yields 3 batches of slightly more than 3 cups (because the rice expands).

I use Lundberg Farms organic short grain brown rice which is about $1.14/lb from Costco. I love and prefer jasmine rice but it is too costly when organic.  One can also find partially milled brown rice at many Asian markets, but despite the lessened production time, it costs way more than polished white rice!  I know there's some backwards Smith-ian economic term to explain this.  (BTW Lundberg organic rice has lower arsenic content.  I take zeolite and eat seaweed to help reduce the heavy metal build up. 

Binchō-tan

*Also I just had an aha!-synapses-firing moment, you can add binchō-tan--Japanese carbonized wood--while soaking and cooking the rice.  The carbon in the binchō-tan helps to filter chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic, that can effect the taste.  I was recommended to use binchō-tan while cooking rice a few years back--possibly the Dae Jang Geum effect (full episode)--and I'm thinking the chemistry of why has to do with heavy metals.  (Thanks to my friend Miho for introducing me to the use of binchō-tan in rice cooking a few years back.)  Do not substitute American charcoal; it is not the same thing.  Binchō-tan can be obtained on the internet.  I finally can use that kilo of binchō-tan I bought randomly at a now closed organic Chinese store in Milpitas and now I know what to ask for as a souvenir when friends go to Japan.

I use the traditional Asian method (ancient Oriental secret) of water measurement for rice cooking--knuckles.  Knuckles are great because well, they allow our fingers to bend and be prehensile.  Almost everyone has one.  And, it doesn't cost any money.  With white rice, it's typically 1 knuckle of water above the rice; with unsprouted brown rice it's typically one and a half knuckles because the bran absorbs so much water; with partially milled rice, it's close to white rice; sprouted brown rice is less than half a knuckle.  There is an element of guesstimation on this because everyone likes their rice texture different so you have to figure out what is your optimal texture/water.  My mom likes it on the dry side; I take after my dad and like it on the mushy side.  My husband likes it on the dry side, my daughter likes it on the soft, but not mushy side.  Unlike Dae Jaeng Geum's mentor Lady Han (full episode), I haven't bothered to figure out how to make one pot of rice magically suit everyone.  (Though I do notice with the VitaClay, the to layer  is drier and the bottom mushier.)

One thing we noticed when eating real food, is that we need less because we are getting more nutrients from each bite.  Serving size is approximately 1/2 cup per adult.  I can get away with eating rice only once a day as long as one of my meals substitutes sweet potato/starchy tuber in its place (for whatever reason, organic potatoes don't work for me.  They leave me hungry overnight).

Organic brown rice grains, note opaque germ on the left of each grain (L to R) dried rice grain; soaked overnight; soaked and sprouted.  You can't see scale so much (I think the soaked had started to dry out after being in the colander all day), but the soaked grain is 1/3rd larger than the dried grain.

SOAKED & SPROUTED BROWN RICE

Ingredients:

• 9 cups of organic, short grain brown rice
• A lot of water

Day 1 SOAK

Soak 9 cups of organic brown rice in a container with plenty of filtered water overnight.  The rice will absorb water so add enough to cover plus 4-6 cups.  Leave on the counter in a warm spot, covered with a towel (to keep out light, dust and in my case, opportunist thirsty cat).

Day 2 rice grains reconstituted
note the opaque germ

Day 2 SPROUT

Drain the grains in a colander and rinse it with filtered water.  You should notice that each grain is now expanded to a third bigger and there is an opaque area at one apex.  This is the germ, where the genetic material of the seed is stored.  Leave this on your kitchen counter for a day under a damp towel (I like flour sack cloth).  Sometimes, by the end of the day, the rice will have already sprouted which is visible as a notch  on the opaque end of the grain (germ).  You can cook or freeze it at this point or allow it to sprout more.

Day 3 Zee GERM-ans have sprouted!

Day 3 RICE & ROLL

Rinse the grains with filtered water.  You should notice a little notch or a tail where the germ is.  Your rice is now ready to cook or store in the freezer!

Rice that has been sprouted needs less water when cooking.   Add rice to the pot and cover up to a half a knuckle of water above the rice line depending on your preference.  You can also add a chunk of binchō-tan (Japanese carbonized wood) while cooking to filter heavy metals including arsenic from the water. 

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Sprouted rice in our VitaClay ready to cook.  
This is a little too much water.

Cooked, sprouted brown rice (a little on the mushy side)

Pasta Carbonara (GF/DF)

I improv'd this meal at 4 o'clock when faced with dinner time and no real plan and diminishing food stock in fridge.  I happened to have a half pound of Trader Joe's uncured, nitrate-free bacon ends & pieces from a while back that still smelled edible and a frozen brick of sustainably-raised ground beef as my base along with chopped kale that I had cooked for the morning's green smoothie.  I set the beef chub to defrost in a tub of water then pulled out my trusty America's Test Kitchen for the recipe instructions.  Pretty much only the ATK cookbooks (and the Asian ones) survived the GF/DF purge a few years back because they are hands down the best cookbooks ever.

I still had leftover raw macadamias in the pantry from when I made nut cheese for GF pizza and Faux Cheezy-cake. This recipe uses the faux cheese method that I discovered in The Dairy-Free & Gluten Free Kitchen.

Other ingredients that I sourced from TJ's besides the bacon: the pre-chopped organic kale, organic brown rice-quinoa pasta.  I abhor brown rice pasta, but the addition of quinoa makes it a lot more palatable.  TruRoots also makes a good brown rice-quinoa pasta that I've found at Costco.

Since the TJ's bacon is rather random pieces and a lot of fat, I added water as it was cooking to help render the fat without burning the bacon.  I started off with 1 cup of water, then as it evaporated added more water until the fat was more rendered into edible sized pieces, then I allowed it to brown on both sides.  This process left a lot to yummy bacon lard and a nice golden brown glaze on my All Clad skillet that I deglazed with balsamic vinegar since we didn't have any white wine on hand.

The timing on this matters.  The macadamia-egg mix should be tossed on to the hot pan (heat off) when you are ready to serve.  T & kid were on a walk visiting the neighboring mule & goats so I had to cover the pan at the third to last step and wait for them to get home.  I had the pan back on low heat with just the pasta, kale & beef, and when they got home, I tossed the macadamia nut mix on.

This is best served fresh.  This recipe serves 4-6.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb+ of uncured bacon
• 1 lb of ground beef (anti-biotic free)
• balsamic vinegar (in lieu of white wine)
• grey sea salt (aka Celtic salt)
• fresh ground organic grains of paradise (or black pepper)
• 1/2 cup raw organic macadamias
• 3 organic eggs
• 1/2 tsp organic onion flakes or powder
• 1/2 tsp organic minced garlic powder
• 16 oz chopped cooked organic kale (steamed or boiled)
• 1/2 package organic brown rice & quinoa pasta
• optional organic chipotle powder

Soak the raw macadamias in enough water to cover.

Cook the kale by boiling or steaming it until cooked through for 10-15 minutes.

Make the pasta according to instructions.  Approx 8-10 minutes.  Drain and rinse with hot water.

Turn oven to 150 degrees and set your oven-proof serving bowl in the oven to warm.  Since I had a nice handmade Tunisian bowl that I was afraid of breaking, I left it at the lowest temperature setting and put the bowl in while the oven was still cold.  Once it heated to 150, I turned the oven off and led the door closed to retain heat.

Drain the macadamias of most of the water leaving around 1/4 cup of water.  Puree the macadamias with the eggs, garlic and onion and a spoonful of sea salt.

Fry the bacon in a skillet until browned.  Remove bacon and add ground beef, sea salt, pepper.  Brown it until cooked through.   Deglaze the pan with balsamic vinegar.  Cover with a lid and turn off the heat to retain the heat.

Add pasta and kale to the skillet.  Pour the macadamia mixture over and toss until well coated.  Cover with the lid.  

Using a towel or potholders, remove the bowl from the oven.  Pour the pasta into the bowl.  Top with crispy bacon and more pepper.  Toss and serve immediately.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

"Mayonnaise Grilled Stew" Chicken Chowder (DF/GF)

Sometimes my daughter watches TV shows on youtube or movies (we don't have cable or netflix.  Yes we're one of those people) and makes a dinner request.  One time it was for Elmo's "pocket food" which ended up being a variation of goi cuon | spring rolls and the "sushi" (brown rice and roasted seaweed) she theretofore was eating quite happily.  The other day it was for Minnie's Stroney (minestrone, get it?).  Yes, it's rampant commercialism influencing her choices.  And sometimes, it's a useful tool for getting her to eat something she doesn't like for xyz reason but sometimes all it takes is a tweak in word choice for her to eat it.  Like when she was 4.5 and refused to eat beans.  I gave her red beans (aka kidney beans) and told her they were kidneys.  Full stop.  And she was happy to eat kidneys.  After a few times I let her know that they were indeed kidney beans, not actually offal.    Her request today was for Mayonnaise Grilled Stew her misheard take on Manny's Gorilla Stew in cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2.   

For whatever reason she dislikes zucchini and carrots but they and kale were the only appropriate veggies I had in the fridge and I happened to have shredded potatoes and sweet potatoes in the freezer, so my solution was to puree them which resulted in a thick and creamy soup.  I've never done it before and really enjoyed the chowder-ness of it though the color was not pretty.  It can also be kept whole.

• avocado oil (olive oil or pasture raised lard)
• half an organic sweet onion sliced
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 2 organic carrots, sliced
• 2 tbs oregano
• 1 tbs cumin powder
• 2 handfuls of grey sea salt
• 6 chicken leg quarters cut into 4 pieces (to expose the marrow)
• 2 organic zucchini sliced
• 12 oz of kale chopped
• 4 organic potatoes, shredded 
• 2 sweet potatoes, shredded

Sauté the onions & garlic in oil until fragrant.  Add the carrots and sauté.  Add the chicken leg quarters and cover with water.  Add oregano, cumin, and sea salt.  Bring to a low boil and simmer for 20 minutes.   Remove the chicken legs and set aside to cool.  

Add the zucchini, kale, and root vegetables.  Cook for 10 minutes or until cooked through.  Use an immersion blender to puree the soup.

Shred chicken and add to the soup.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!