Rebel Cooking - Growing Up

I have not been cooking overly much here today – just a little goat meat stew and some odds and ends. But, what I have been doing quite a bit of these days is learning more about preserving foods.

As well as working at growing a sourdough starter culture….it was growing well until I got a little carried away and added another type of flour to the mixture and promptly killed it.

At least I think I did – so, I am trying to revive it or I will start it all over again. But, it’s all new territory for me, so this is a great learning curve so far and I am enjoying making the mistakes too. Right now the starter has grown a tiny bit in the last hour, there might be hope yet!

But, back to the meat – there are so many different types of meat out there such as venison and goat, we in the West would not eat regularly (as a general rule). But, are really missing out when we don’t because they are not only a great source of protein (lean and healthy) but tasty too.

To really enjoy a meal of goat or venison – it’s all seems to be in the marinade and your approach to cooking. Of course for any stronger or tougher meat, you will have to treat it a little differently from a spring lamb.

When handled and cooked properly, any meat can be made into a wonderful meal and these gamier tasting meats are no different. So on to the marinade which might be anything really, but just something that will break down the collagen fibres of the muscle as well as add flavour…

I don’t follow any one recipe when it comes right down to it. What I do is just look at how much I would like to cook and then decide what ingredients I have on hand and how big a bowl to use.

It’s that simple – I often start with 3 or 4 bay leaves, add some olive oil if the meat is lacking fat (such as venison), a tablespoon of mustard, 1 level teaspoon turmeric, some sage, thyme, rosemary (especially for goat meat), chopped onions, garlic, leek, a little balsamic or apple cider vinegar and then I add something citrus or sweet.

Today I sliced up a whole lemon into thin wedges and added it into the marinade for goat meat, which all went into the stew once it started cooking. I would just season a little bit with pepper and some salt – at the beginning because it might draw out some moisture from the meat. Besides, salt can be added at the end of the cooking as well.

The last time I made a piece of goat or venison I added cranberry apple sauce and it was lovely….and since goat lends itself to herbs, I do put in whatever I can find from my garden (parsley, lovage, Welsh onion, sprouting things and leaves etc.).

So you see you can add anything and make a great tasting meal from this type of meat – no excuses necessary. Just flavourful great taste and a little learning curve will take you there….now I am ready to get back to my sourdough. This is so much fun!

April 

Goat Stew

Dried Herbs (homegrown) are so much better!

You know over these past many years now since I made fundamental changes to my diet and have never looked back, I really thought I had seen, heard, done, or eaten it all. But this summer with my latest twist in removing these few items of processed foods (they were still organic) out of my cupboards, there has been another eye-opener.

I mean, I eat organic and have for years, have been either vegan or vegetarian off and on, for  nearly two decades and only now include a little fish and meat in our diets (once a month or so). I would think my body tissues, my organs and my taste buds to be fairly clean.

Detoxing is what I am known for, in all it's forms - I have been incorporating fasting for quite some time into my normal routine and am very selective on which foods might slow down the digestion in any way. However....

Today once again I was blown away by the fragrance, taste and look of my home grown dried herbs from the garden. Usually I would buy a few herbs for my own use and they would mostly be organic. Good so far, right?

Dried herbs - slowly filling the jars with sage, dill and thyme

But why do they not 'smell' as fragrant as homegrown herbs, or look as green or flavour my food in the same way? These past few weeks I have been steadily throwing old shop bought herbs onto the fire and replacing them as they are ready from my garden.

This year I am determined to dry enough to last me until they come up again in the spring - and I have a wider range of plants to choose from as well as many more of them. In the exact same way that homemade jam or pickles do not compare to anything that comes from a shop, these herbs are amazing.

A paper bag full of dried sage 

I wish you were here because it is hard to explain - I open the jar in the kitchen and you can smell the herb everywhere. Each one of them are bursting with an intensity of aroma. Today I left an open jar of dill herb on the counter and walked into another room - the fragrance slowly made its way around as if floating on the air.

Magic. Perhaps it's all the rain (must be good for something LOL)!!

Have a lovely herby day,

April 

Kiwi apple fruit leather - it was yummy! All gone now....

More About Herbs

Today I am fasting and not cooking meals, however I have a pile of fruit that needs to be made into jams and I hope to get to that later today. Right now I am enjoying this post feast feeling of quietness after a big weekend.

I am also sipping away on a herbal tea blend that I made up for myself last night in my clinic. When I was making up some teas, it got me thinking about how I go about using herbs, selecting them and just knowing which ones need to be used and when.

My own herbal tea blend

For me, as an intuitive, I just 'know' what is right, often without needing to know why - our bodies often choose the medicine but also sometimes the herbs choose us. My daughter talks to the herbs in our garden all the time (I have an extensive medicinal herb garden) and explains to me how to listen to them.

Of course, this is something that I have been doing for a long time - and it is refreshing to see and hear from a child's perspective, because it reminds me of many things that I now take for granted. These herbs are part of our legacy as humans, we have evolved and developed together with many plants whose medicine is the only language our cells speak.

Marigold in the garden

My approach to using and blending herbs is quite different to other people because of this fact - I remember them from lifetimes I have lived and worked using herbs. But, I also hear them, feel their vibration and understand something deeper about the way energy medicine is meant to be. To me this is their magic...

All things have a vibration (even if it's a stolen one like plastic) at least at the beginning of it's life and this is what we are working with when we ingest, digest and absorb properties such as vitamins, minerals and plant chemicals especially from the highly refined energies in herbs. 

It is this vibration that can be altered, changed, interfered with and in many ways broken (the same as our own energy fields) during processing, handling, shipping and yes, through negativity. The higher your own vibration raises through diet change, exercise, spiritual clearing and detox, the more sensitive you are to energetic frequency, especially from food and anything that you might ingest.

When using herbs as medicine, they will work far better when they are handled lovingly, gently and not processed by machines. The processing of our 'foods' has taken over everything but equally has far reaching consequences when it comes to the use of herbs. 

Well, off to make some more tea with gently handled herbs!

April

My packet of herbs with my own blend using gingko, elder flower, marigold, chamomile and dandelion