Is Gluten Making Us Fat? | Fitbie

In my opinion, it isn't gluten, carbs, or fat that's making us fat, it's lack of activity.

"So even if you stick to a gluten-free diet, it can actually lead to weight gain. A 2006 study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology followed 188 people with celiac disease (half of whom were overweight or obese) on a gluten-free diet for 2 years and discovered that 81 percent of them gained weight."

Is Gluten Making Us Fat? | Fitbie

Pictures of St. Patricks Day Dinner & A Friends Yummy dinner.

Our St. Patrick's Day dinner turned out great.  The lamb chops were marinated in olive oil, basalmic vinegar, garlic and rosemary.  The potatoes, were "smashed" by my youngest and loaded with butter, garlic and whole milk, and the peas were steamed.  Here's how it all turned out:

And now for some mouthwatering pictures of my friends St. Patrick's Day Dinner - She's recently discovered cooking her corned beef in a slow cooker - Seems it turned out perfect.........

You can fined the recipe for the Slow Cooker Corned Beef with Horseradish Cream, Carrots, Red Potatoes and Cabbage here at Yumsugar
And here is a picture of the Irish Onion Soup that I hope to be making myself soon.  It looks incredible! 

Doesn't that make you hungry looking at it?
If you feel the need to make this for yourself you can find the recipe here at Yumsugar.

The lovely lady who made this delicious dinner has a wheat free family, so she made this recipe her own by substituting her homemade almond flour focaccia for the regular crusty bread this recipe calls for.  I'll be trying to get that recipe from her and post it here for anyone who is interested in a wheat free option.
Hope everyone had a lucky and delicious St. Paddy's Day - Happy Spring!

2011 St. Patricks Day - Not like any other for me

Last year, I pulled out all the stops and put on an amazing St. Patricks Day dinner.  I brined my own beef brisket, cooked it up with potatoes and cabbage and made my favorite bread pudding recipe for desert.  I love brining my own Corned Beef, it's far superior to anything you can buy, and you can skip the nitrates.  But, this year is a whole different situation.  I have since left my married life and I'm living as a single mom off and on as I share custody with my ex.  A full corned beef would be a crazy amount of food for me and my girls.  But I figured, what the heck - plenty of sandwiches later.  But, the economy being what it is, and the divorce doing what it has to my own personal economy, I can't justify buying an entire brisket to corn when I have just $60 to make it to the next paycheck.  So what to do.

I decide, while I'm feeling sorry for myself, to pick up one of my favorite books, in the spirit of St. Patrick's Day.  Angela's Ashes.  Frank McCourt's memoir of his extremely challenging and poor childhood in Ireland and the U.S.  This book always makes me feel grateful for what I have, and points out to me the hell that human beings can survive.  After re-reading the part in chapter three about Frank's mother, Angela, managing to get a pig's head for Christmas dinner.  That's all they could afford, and they were lucky to get it.  To top it off, there isn't enough coal to cook the pig's head, and the boys and their father have to go out on the streets to scrounge for coal to get their Christmas dinner cooked.  I won't even begin to go into the hell that their living conditions were.  I will just say, that's enough to make me stop whining about not being able to have corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. 

So - I decide to thoroughly go through my pantry and figure out just what we can have for St. Patrick's dinner - I have managed to find 6 lamb chops left from the 4-H sheep Cordelia raised a couple of years ago, and I decided to take with me when I left my married life - tightly wrapped, and due to be used.  There are 3 potatoes in the bottom of my fridge needing to be boiled up and mashed up with some butter and milk, and, hello!  A bag of frozen peas in the back of my freezer.  Voila!  St. Patrick's day dinner is good to go, and I'm counting my blessings!  Lamb chops!  Yum! 

Hmmm - and desert?  I know apple pie doesn't sound Irish - it's all American right?  Well, apples were a big part of the Celtic diet, and I already have the apples sliced and frozen in my freezer.  I just need to make a pie crust, put the apples in it with sugar, butter, cinnamon and a little lemon zest, all of which I have on hand, bake it, and we have a traditional Irish desert for St. Patrick's day. 

Hopefully I'll pull of of this off, and hopefully everyone else out there will have a wonderful, nourishing, and plentiful St. Patrick's Day. 

'Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!'
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

P.S. - when the money situation lightens up a bit, I still plan to corn that brisket and have myself a belated St. Patrick's Day dinner. 

Blood Bones & Butter

Another book to add to my reading list - If Anthony Bourdain recommends it, I'll read it.

NYC chef Gabrielle Hamilton reveals brunch secrets in new memoir 'Blood, Bones & Butter' - NYPOST.com

Something To Say: Stupidity, Humans, Food

Michael Ruhlman is a hero of mine - and I LOVE this! I've been saying this same thing for years. Listen people - quit being stupid about your food. It's killing you.

Something To Say: Stupidity, Humans, Food

Homemade English Muffins.

A while ago I was checking out Michael Ruhlman's Blog (can you tell I check his blog out a lot?) and noticed he had a recipe for homemade english muffins.  Homemade english muffins?  These have to be good.  The store bought ones are great comfort food, all toasted up with some melted butter and honey.  Can you imagine english muffin's, fresh and warm, made that day with melted butter and honey? 

Well, yesterday I was home with a sick child and had some time on my hands - which is a rare and precious thing, so what did I do with that time?  Besides cleaning and making regular bread dough for another day, I put together the dough for english muffins.  If you click here you can get Ruhlman's recipe.  It's really quite easy.  The hardest part is planning ahead.  I put the recipe together just like he has on his blog (which only took about 15 minutes at the most)  and, instead of letting it sit for one and a half hours I put it in the fridge.  First thing I did the next morning was preheat my broiler and pull the pre-made dough out and let it rise for one hour - while I did yoga and various other chores.  I then mixed 2 tsp of baking powder into 1 tbsp of water and mixed that into the dough, sprinkled some cornmeal on a griddle and proceeded to put 1/4 cup amounts of dough onto the griddle and let them sit for 7 minutes before turning over and cooking another 7 minutes.  I didn't use any muffing rings.  I went free form, and with the results I got, I see no reason to do otherwise.  I ended up with 16 deliciously imperfect little english muffins, which my kids loved. 

We just pried them apart with a fork, stuck them under the broiler for a few minutes and slathered them in butter.  I have to say, I've never had an english muffin this good.  I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to store bought ones now - especially with these being so easy to make. 

Prosciutto update

A little over two weeks ago I was inspired to try my hand at making duck prosciutto.  I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs Michael Ruhlman's Blog.  He posted a quick blurb about these two ladies, Kim and Cathy who are putting on a Charcutepalooza - or a year of "making meat".  Their first project was duck prosciutto which is suppose to be one of the easier meats to cure.  They used Michael Ruhlman's and Brian Polcyn's book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, which I just happen to have in my cookbook collection.
Well, a couple weeks later, plus a few days, I decided to unwrap my duck breasts and see what I had.  I was so upset when I saw this.  I panicked!

AHHHH!  MOLD! 
Well, after a little panic time I calmed down and did some research, including reviewing my Charcuterie book - No need to panic.  The mold, both green (bad) and white (good) was only on the surface.  It hadn't gone any further.  I good cleaning with some white vinegar and patting dry and wrapping and refrigerating and we were good to go.  I got brave yesterday had a little taste.  Yum!  Perfection! 
So today I fixed myself a nice little prosciutto lunch - prosciutto, garlic jack from Loleta Cheese Factory and some 3 bean salad. 

It was sooooo good!  My oldest daughter decided to give it a little try.  I love when I feed her something I made and her eyes roll up in her head with pleasure at how good it tastes.  She's hooked!  So, the duck prosciutto turned out to be a success.  What next?  Bacon maybe?  Hmmmm.