Goose in the kitchen
Goose helped me in the kitchen today. When we cook, she says we are “Pinches and Nibbles’ Bakery.” We worked hard and had fun + got a lot done. First we had to figure out what to make for Twig’s b-day tomorrow, which seemed overwhelming until I thought about raw food and the fact that there can be no flour, which really works for us, so I searched around and found lots of recipes for raw carrot cake. Using what we had on hand, we combined a few recipes and made our own modified raw carrot cupcakes (pictures to come tomorrow on the big day!)
Then after tearing ourselves away from sampling the cupcakes, we made some more grain-free granola, but added a bit more nut-butter and rolled them into balls for easier eating (but there was some leftover that wasn’t quite as sticky to add to yogurt in the mornings, etc.) We added some toasted chickpeas to this batch too for extra crunch (and because Goose loves them.)
Then we jarred up the tomatoes that dried overnight and packed them in oil, labeled them and put them in the fridge for later use. Once the kitchen was straightened up from all that, we worked on lunch. We had the soup from yesterday’s trip to Heritage Prairie Market and decided to make some re-fried beans and “corn” bread (a combination cornbread/garbanzo bean meal bread, actually.) Now that there is less in the kitchen (product-wise) and the spices are all, finally!, neatly organized and up on the fridge in little labeled tins, it’s quicker work to actually cook and clean up.
Here are our lunch photos:
Locally made soup by Heritage Prarie Farm & Market
Refried beans
Corn/garbanzo bean bread
a hot slice!
Lunch. I love how the cornbread and beans make an exclamation point!
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And one of the spices arranged neatly, which I *LOVE!*
Spice tins, on the side of fridge by stove
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Dinner was steamed broccoli and shepherd’s pie from The SCD Diet Cookbook that my friend, Tara, sent me a few days ago. Thank you, Tara!! Everyone enjoyed it except me, as I am having a very strong aversion to ground meat for some reason lately. 
I’m definitely going to listen to my body and avoid it for awhile and see what happens.
Shepherd's pie
shepherd's pie and broccoli
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It was a busy day full of food. Twig and Lil Pea picked up our meat order from Wallace Farms while Goose and I did all that cooking this morning, and then as Lil Pea napped, I made a trip to Trader Joe’s to restock some other things, like nuts.
Now I am off to the kitchen- again!- to whip the frosting for the cupcakes, and see what I can prepare ahead of time for lunch tomorrow, and put some pecans in to toast that have been soaking.
*I will post the corn/garbanzo bean recipe later*
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Corn/garbanzo bean bread:
2 tbs lard
1 cup organic (or non-GMO) cornmeal
1 cup garbanzo bean or garbanzo/fava flour
1 tsp baking soda (make sure it is the non-aluminum kind!)
1 tsp salt (non-iodized, and sea salt is the best)
1 TBS honey (optional- we don’t do this because I like savory cornbread being from the south and Twig tops his with some honey)
2 TBS baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk (I used 1 tbs vinegar + enough hemp milk to make a cup and 1/4)
Preheat a cast-iron skillet with your lard (stove-top or in oven at 350* until lard melts.) Swirl it around the pan to coat the edges too. Mix the ingredients in a bowl until combined. You want it to be a little runnier than regular cornbread because the bean flour is going to soak up some moisture, so add a little more milk if you need to. Pour the lard into the batter at the end and mix, then pour the whole thing into the now-greased skillet and bake at 400*F until it’s golden brown and pulling away at the edges of the pan a little bit (about 25 minutes, depending on the oven.)
*Linked to Friday Foodie Fix
