Butternut Squash Homefries

Why not actual potato homefries? Come on now... if you don't know the answer, then I can't help you. Sweet potato homefries would be okay but you can't beat the nutrients in this disguised winter squash. It also has a little sweetness to it.  It's the sweet/savory balance that makes it a perfect breakfast side.

Ingredients
1 large organic butternut squash
2 tbsp pastured lard, bacon grease or butter (Kerrygold)
1/2 organic white onion chopped
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp organic parsley
1/2 tsp organic garlic powder
1 tsp organic mixed seasoning
1/4 cup homemade bone broth (chicken, beef, pork or whatever you have)
2 pieces of bacon (optional)

Directions
Skin, de-seed and cube your butternut squash to about the size of potato homefries. If you are using the bacon, you will want to chop it up into small pieces and start it cooking in a large skillet with the lard, grease or butter. I didn't have bacon to spare, so I left it out of this batch. 
Once the skillet is hot, add the cubed butternut squash and cook it until you get a nice browning on as much of it as possible. Add the chopped onion about halfway through.

After the squash has a good amount of color on it, add the dry seasonings and mix everything together. By this time the squash should almost be cooked through. Pour the broth in the skillet, mix it around and put a lid on it to steam. In about 5 minutes take the lid off and let the excess liquid cook off. 
Serve hot and enjoy!
If you want to spice it up a little, you can add some chopped pickled jalapenos or a pinch or two of cayenne.

Breakfast Sausage

This is something we would eat everyday if it was in the fridge. It is the easiest thing to make and a good substitute for bacon (but why would you not want bacon...?). Because this is just as amazing. I don't know if my husband is aware, but I mentally keep tabs on how much sausage he has eaten, just so I can make sure I'm getting my fair share.

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground pork (preferably pasture-raised)

1 tsp organic onion powder

1/2 tsp organic garlic powder

1 tsp organic thyme (if ground use 1/4)

1/4 tsp organic ground sage

3/4 tsp sea salt 

pinch of organic pepper

pinch of organic cayenne (or more if you like spicy)

3/4 cup almond flour

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl with your hands. I add almond flour to bulk up the volume that this recipe produces. It soaks up the flavor and juices from the meat and when you eat it, you would never know it's in there. It also gives a good crispy texture when you cook it. If I didn't add this (and it's totally optional), I fear the sausage rations would last half the time. If you decide not to use almond flour, you may want to cut the amount of salt down by 1/4 tsp.

Once everything is mixed thoroughly you will want to form the sausage into a big log and wrap it in cling wrap. This way, you can just cut a slice off the end in the morning to have a ready-to-cook sausage patty.

Brown on both sides, cook a couple of eggs in the grease and you have a complete primal breakfast in minutes.

Sweet Mashed Potatoes

Here is a great Thanksgiving recipe that will help your whole family eat a little healthier. My sister and I consulted each other on this one in attempts to get our family away from good ol' green bean casserole. Everything in that recipe is canned... it's just so wrong... and yet somehow it became family tradition. Hopefully this week I can post enough recipes to break all of the unhealthy traditions going around.
This is a much healthier potato dish than your standard mashed potatoes. Tried and documented by Kelly Sharon (my sister).

Ingredients (for 8 servings)

3 organic sweet potatoes

½ of an organic sweet yellow onion

1 head of roasted organic garlic

Organic or homemade Chicken broth (set aside 1 1/4 cups)

Butter or lard (for dairy-free)

1 package of bacon 
1/2 tsp sea salt

sea salt & pepper to taste

organic rosemary

Directions 

Put the garlic in the oven to roast. Boil the sweet potatoes in half water, half chicken broth with about 1/2 tsp of sea salt and 2 sprigs of rosemary. Boil until fork tender, then drain the water. Mash the potatoes with the roasted garlic, about 6 tbsp of butter and approx 1-1 ¼ cups of chicken broth. Add in the chopped onion and about 5 pieces of chopped bacon.  Salt & pepper to taste.  Put in a greased baking dish with the rest of the crumbled bacon on top and a little more butter.  Baked on 400 deg for about 20 minutes.

Quiche

This recipe is mainly for the crust.  Once you have this part down you can make any kind of quiche imaginable.  In fact, you can take all of the savory elements out of the crust recipe and replace them with sweet ones to make the perfect crust for a tart!

*UPDATE - I have made this crust many times for sweet and savory dishes having omitted the ground flax seed. It works just as well with 3 cups of almond flour or 2 cups almond flour and 1 of coconut flour. This should simplify things a bit on the supply end of things. I also use this for pies and anything that needs a crust.

Quiche crust

1 1/2 cups almond flour

1 1/2 cups fresh ground golden flax seed 

10 or more roasted garlic cloves (I roast my own)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup cold water

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp of seasoning of your choice (I used a little cayenne, onion powder, and an organic mixed seasoning)

1/2 tsp arrowroot or tapioca starch

*If you eat dairy, definitely throw some parmesan cheese in there!

**If you are making tart crust use 2 to 1 ratio almond to coconut flour.  Use lard or coconut oil instead of olive oil; sweeten with stevia extract or xylitol (both is better); cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and vanilla extract to season; lower the amount of salt to a pinch or two.

Directions

Mix all of your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a whisk to make sure it is evenly distributed.  Crush or chop the garlic cloves and add to the dry mix with the olive oil and water.  Use a pastry dough blender (a food processor works just as well) to mix the ingredients until you have an evenly moist pile of crumbles.  Dump the crumbles into a pre-greased baking dish and begin kneading them down into an even layer all the way up the sides.  I usually bake it for about 5 minutes before I fill it.

And there is your crust!

Now for filling the quiche.  I use bacon almost every time because I can sauté all of my veggies in the bacon grease to really get the flavor in everything.  I did this with red onion, spinach and fresh parsley this time and if I were eating dairy right now you can bet there would be cheese!

Once all of your veggies and extras are spread evenly around in the crust, you can pour an egg mixture over the entire thing almost up to the top of the sides. For this size quiche I used 1 1/2 dozen eggs, however, if I were eating dairy I would have used a dozen eggs, a cup or so of organic heavy cream and 1/2 cup of shredded cheese.  Cream cheese or goat cheese is definitely a wise choice. 

Don't forget to season this egg mixture too!  Use about 1/2 tsp or more of sea salt and maybe a pinch of some of the seasonings you used in your crust.

Once the egg mixture is poured over everything it will go in the oven until everything has a little brown color on it and a toothpick comes out clean.  I usually bake on or around 400 degrees because I have no patience.  Just remember, I am baking at 10,000 feet and I am constantly checking the progress of what I am cooking.  Generally, when you start to smell what you are baking, it is time for it to come out of the oven or pretty close to it.

Homemade Bacon

Making bacon is not easy.  It takes a lot of time, patience and failed attempts to get it right.  But once you get it right, it is well worth it.  I have yet to see pastured bacon in the store.  Even the organic bacon with no nitrates still comes form grain fed pigs.  Sometimes we get bacon from our CSA, which raises pastured pork but it is cured with sodium nitrate and I'm not interested in that on a regular basis.  So, I make my own.
First, you will need a good source of pork belly; sometimes it is called pork side.  We get our pastured pork from our CSA.  They raise healthy, pastured pigs on their farm in Wellington, CO.  Once you find some quality meat, it's time to make bacon.


The Brine
Ice Water
Sea Salt
Black Pepper or any other spices

That's basically all that needs to be in the brine but you can add whatever spices you'd like to it.  Most traditional bacon brines have sugar in them, too.  I do not use sugar but you can add maple syrup or honey if you think it needs some sweetening.  The amount of salt is up to you.  For about 2 lbs of pork belly, I use about 1/4 C to 1/2 C of salt.  A little salt goes a long way.  But keep in mind you need that salt to prevent it from growing harmful bacteria. It takes some time and practice to get it right.
Add your salt and whatever other spices to some boiling water and let simmer until it is all dissolved.  Then add that to the ice water and submerge your pork belly in that mixture.  I put mine in a Pyrex container with a plastic lid but anything that will fit the belly and brine mixture will do.  The pork needs to be fully submerged, so putting a ceramic plate on top of it to weight it down is a good idea.
Put it in the fridge and let it brine for about a week.  Next you need to "freshen" it.

This means rinsing the pork off with cold water for about 20 minutes.  You are trying to wash off all the excess salt.  The brining process will get the salt and spice flavor into the meat but you don't need extra on the outside.  If you don't freshen, your bacon will be way too salty.
After freshening, pat dry with paper towels.  And now we smoke.

Bacon needs to be cold smoked.  I have a regular, old smoker.  So, what I do is get the wood chips smoking a whole lot, load the water tray with ice and smoke the pork belly for about 20 minutes.  This ice will keep the temperature down but you need to have a lot of smoke going before putting the pork in.  Otherwise you will overcook it.  Keep in mind, you're just adding smoke flavor to the belly, not cooking it.  Keep an eye on it because you can overdo it very easily.  This takes time and practice to get right.
Remove and let your pork belly cool.  Once it is cool, wrap it tightly in plastic and stick it in the fridge overnight.  Don't try to cut it, yet.  It needs to cool overnight.
Now, slice.  I use a deli style meat slicer to cut mine into strips but a knife will do.
Now, you have bacon.  Enjoy.

Bacon

It's been said many times: bacon makes everything taste better.  I didn't always eat this much bacon.  But now when I have my breakfast without it, I feel gypped.
Besides enjoying it for breakfast it works wonders for sauteed veggies, adds depth of flavor to meatloafs, burgers, chilis and can even be incorporated into sweets. Always, ALWAYS save the grease!  It is definitely one of my secret ingredients for cooking.

The brands we buy when we are unable to make our own are Coleman, Beelers, and Applegate Farms.  You can find Beelers, Applegate Farms and Maverick at Natural Grocers.  Coleman and Applegate Farms can be found at most Kroger locations.  Whole Foods carries some of these and their own version of uncured bacon.  The bacon you want is the bacon that has as little processing as possible, no or minimal sugar, preferably organic and uncured.  The truth is, there is no such thing as "uncured" bacon.  If it wasn't cured, it wouldn't be bacon.  That's all marketing.  "Uncured" on a label of bacon simply means it was cured with natural sources of nitrates and nitrites.  Usually these companies use celery juice powder to cure the meat instead of sodium nitrate (1 -2 grams may be lethal.)  I am partial to the Coleman bacon because it is very thin and gets crispier faster but they come in all ranges of thickness.
Ideally you want to make your own bacon, which is not easy and takes some experimentation to get it just how you want it.  Right now we have some brining in our fridge that will get smoked today and sliced tomorrow.  After you get the basic recipe down you can start to play with the flavoring.  Then, once you've become a pro, you can experiment and even add some liquor to your brining process.  Enjoy!