Recipes
Homemade Soft Drinks
Soft drinks are not healthy beverages. Loaded with sugar, sugar substitutes, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, and phosphates (which leach calcium from your bones), they actually erode your health.
Soft drinks once were health tonics. Root beer, ginger ale, and many others were bubbly beverages made from herbs, trace minerals (from real salt, not table salt), probiotics, and lacto-fermentation. You cannot buy these in stores easily, but you can easily make them at home.
I make a number of ginger ales, orange soda, and “red pop.” I will admit, the root beers are a bit tricky so start with something easier.
Don’t have time? This is a GREAT thing to let the kids do! Just make sure to supervise, and expect some extra clean-up!
“This Can’t Be Liver” Liver Pate
If you think you don’t like liver, you haven’t had pate like this before. When I bring it to parties, it is devoured. People want the recipe. They request me to bring it to their next party. It is divine. Made with 1/3 liver, 1/3 mushroom, 1/3 scallion (and hard boiled egg if you prefer more of a liverwurst taste), it’s a great introduction to liver in the diet. Keep it on hand and use it for snacking or as a sandwich spread. A few tablespoons per day can go a long way toward health.
Ingredients
1 lb chicken livers, soaked in water with lemon juice repeatedly until water runs clear
1/2 lb button mushrooms
1 bunch scallions
1 cup dry vermouth
butter
spices: salt, garlic, rosemary, dill, dry mustard, black pepper
Instructions
Saute in butter equal parts of chopped liver, mushrooms, and scallions until done. Add vermouth and spices to taste (about 1 tbsp each except black pepper) and boil it down until the liquid is gone. Puree in food processor with butter to taste. Chill and serve.
For more detailed instructions, use Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon, or ask me for a copy of her recipe on your next visit. I keep it in the office!
Amy Galvan, AP
Beet Kvass
Beet Kvass is a fermented, non-alcoholic beverage that has been around for centuries. Fermented with lactobacillus (like yogurt) instead of yeast, it does not produce alcohol. Beet Kvass is a great tonic for the blood. It detoxifies and builds blood, moves the bowels, and repopulates the gut with friendly probiotics. It’s simple to make, so keep it on hand and drink half a glass everyday for good health.
Ingredients:
3-4 beets
2L filtered water in a glass jar
salt to taste
1-2 tbsp whey
Choose organic, farm fresh beets. Those you buy in the grocery store are so deficient in nutrients that they cannot keep the microorganisms alive to ferment this beverage.
Use filtered water. City water contains chlorine and will kill the microorganisms needed to ferment this beverage.
Celtic sea salt is best. It contains trace minerals and does not raise blood pressure in most salt-sensitive hypertensive people. Always check your blood pressure to see if your hypertension is salt-sensitive or not.
Whey is the clear liquid you find on your yogurt. Leave yogurt out on the counter overnight and you’ll get plenty of whey for this recipe. It is loaded with lactobacillus to lacto-ferment the beet kvass. If you are vegan or intolerant of dairy, you can purchase dairy-free lactobacillus.
Directions
Quarter the beets, and put them in the jar with water, salt, and whey. Let sit on countertop for 3 days or longer, until bubbly with fermentation. Drink a serving every day. When you get down to the last half-glass, use it to start the next batch by adding it to the water.
Chicken Liver Pate
Here’s the recipe that makes people beg me to bring liver pate to parties! It’s from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions cookbook, based on French recipes. I always recommend this for a first liver food. It is 1/3 liver, 1/3 mushroom, 1/3 scallion cooked in wine with herbs and spices. Fabulous!
If you don’t like it, blend it into meatballs and meatloaf and it will enrich the flavor without standing out.
3 tbsp butter
1 lb chicken livers (soaked in water with lemon juice to draw out blood, rinsed)
1/2 lb mushrooms, rough chopped
1 bunch scallions, rough chopped
2/3 cup vermouth
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp dried dill
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 stick butter, softened, to taste (I use much less)
sea salt
Quick and easy: saute equal parts rough chopped liver, scallion, mushroom until browned, 10-20 minutes. Add vermouth, fresh crushed garlic, a generous squeeze of lemon, and sprinkles of rosemary, dill, dry mustard, salt. It looks soupy. Boil until all the vermouth is evaporated, about 20-30 minutes. Cool. Process in blender, food processor, or mini chopper with butter to taste. Serve chilled on crackers.
I have substituted liver from calves, deer, and pig with stronger onions and leeks, and used stronger mushrooms like baby portabella and shiitake, and it has turned out well enough, but for parties, use milder chicken liver and button mushrooms.
Homemade Pudding
Homemade pudding nourishes yin. It uses milk and barely cooked eggs, both Jing-Essence foods of prima materia. Here’s an easy way to make it in the evenings, for one serving. It takes about 20 minutes, longer if you double the recipe. You can make a lot if you have 45 minutes to bring it to a boil, and refrigerate the leftovers or bake into a pie.
1 tbsp corn starch (non-GMO, aluminum-free is healthiest)
1 tbsp sugar (rapadura, sucanat is best; 1 tbsp agave nectar works also for diabetics)
Mix in a mug.
Add milk slowly, stirring in so it doesn’t clump, until mug is full. Dump into a saucepan. Fill mug with an egg yolk, or whole egg if you prefer. Keep mug with egg set aside.
Heat over medium to medium high heat in saucepan, stirring constantly so it doesn’t scorch, until it boils. It will reduce and thicken slightly due to steam releasing. As it begins to boil, the cornstarch will activate and thicken the milk. (Don’t try to thicken it faster with more cornstarch; it will just get gummy like taffy.)
Slowly slowly pour hot pudding mixture back into mug with egg in it. The trick is to not cook the egg with the hot pudding, so stir vigorously to cool it and pour slowly to increase temperature in tiny increments. If you mix too fast and suddenly cook the egg, it will clump instead of blend with milk, and you will have chunky pudding. Some people use more than one egg for more thickness and easier temperature control because you have more egg-to-milk ratio as you begin.
You can put it all back in the pan and bring to a second boil if you want to cook the egg more and thicken the pudding more, without lumps, now that it’s evenly mixed with milk. This step is not necessary unless you want to guarantee the egg gets pasteurized to protect against salmonella.
Stir in 1/4 to 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, or add coconut flakes, raisins, grated almonds, etc.
For chocolate pudding, add powdered cocoa to sugar and cornstarch mix before you add milk.
Enjoy!
Lemon Custard Tart
I like this recipe because unlike most desserts, it has lots of protein. The primary ingredient is 7 eggs! It also has citrus peel which aids digestion after a heavy meal. Sometimes I bake the custard without a crust to cut back on sugar and carbs. If you are diabetic, use stevia (to taste) instead of sugar.
INGREDIENTS
12 oz pastry crust (optional if using baking dish)
grated rind of 2-3 lemons
2/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup superfine sugar (or less!)
4 tbsp heavy cream
4 eggs
3 egg yolks
confectioner’s sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 F.
1. PIe crust: Line pie pan with pastry dough. Prick and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.
2. Beat lemon juice, lemon rind, and sugar in a bowl.
3. Slowly add cream and beat until well-blended.
4. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in egg yolks.
5. Pour mixture into pie shell (or baking dish if not using pie shell)
6. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, until set. If it begins to brown, cover with foil.
7. Let cool. Dust with confectioner’s sugar (optional).
Calves’ Liver with Honey
Even people who don’t like liver have loved this dish and asked for seconds. I hope you like it!
NOTE: The trick to getting liver to taste better is to soak it in lots of water with lemon juice, to draw the blood out. Rinse and refill the water a few times, until the water runs close to clear. I usually soak mine 30 minutes to overnight. Alternately, you can soak it in milk or buttermilk to affect flavor and tenderness.
INGREDIENTS
4 slices calves’ liver (6 oz each, 1/2 inch thick)
Flour, for dusting
1 sweet onion and/or mushrooms
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil (or more butter)
2 tbsp sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
2-3 tbsp chicken broth (use homemade)
1 tbsp honey
salt & pepper
DIRECTIONS
1. Pat liver dry; season with salt & pepper, dust with flour.
2. Melt butter & oil in skillet at medium heat and saute onions and/or mushrooms. Transfer to warm plate.
3. Raise heat to high. Brown livers 1-2 minutes on each side. Do not overcook. Transfer to warm plate.
4. Stir vinegar, honey, chicken broth into pan and boil 1 minute (deglaze the pan).
5. Stir in remaining butter until smooth.
6. If you like, thicken the glaze to a gravy by stirring in at high heat either flour or premixed 1tbsp cornstarch & water mixture.
7. Place onions and mushrooms on browned breaded livers. Pour glaze or sauce over top.
8. Garnish with fresh watercress, or serve with stirred greens (beet greens, mustard greens, kale, etc.)
Enjoy!