I'm back!

After a wicked hiatus (and a marriage and a couple kids) I'm ready to get back on this wagon.

Trevor and I split up and I met an amazing man who had a 7 year old son.  They welcomed me into their lives and shortly after, we welcomed his 4-year old niece into our house.  She had been in foster care and the court was headed toward severing her mother's rights.  We didn't want her to grow up in that environment and so we took her in.  (There's a LOT more to this story, but the cliff's notes version will have to do.  Shortly after that R and I got married, moved to Kansas, and had a baby. 

We LOVE it here!  We're outside of Kansas City in a small town of about 6,000 people.  We live on almost 4 acres of wooded/lawn that has a beautiful custom-built home on it. No, we didn't build the home, but we are finishing that basement!

All said, I've missed writing and I'm glad to be back.

I win

"I made a keto cheese hammer of judgement. Your argument is irrelevant."

Oops, I did it again...

SausageFest 2014 happened last weekend. 

It was glorious, we should have made shirts to commemorate the occasion... I guess spiced meats will have to do!

A friend of ours has the same sausage grinder that I do, and after careful deliberation over a bottle of wine one night, we decided that we should combine our respective talents into one massive day of meats. Again, glorious.

The day began at The Meat Shop in Phoenix where we picked up some choice cuts (for grinding, so not the speedy stuff) to play with. I also raided my chest freezer for some goodies. We had: beef chuck, pork (loin tip and blade roast), lamb, veal, and chicken thighs.

We went to the downtown phoenix market for some herbs and lemons and then headed home for the fun.

We set one grinder for coarse and the other for fine and we went to town grinding ALL THE MEATS!! 

Truth be told, it was pretty ridiculous.

Trevor, me, and Chris has the most efficient system going. We were all in the zone. 

We even cased a bunch of sausages for a new twist on my old game.

Of course, we tested each recipe before we committed it to the case.

All said, we made: 

Spicy Italian chicken sausage

Fennel and apple chicken sausage

Koobideh (lamb)

Gyro (lamb)

Spicy Italian pork sausage

Wheatless Veal meatballs with flax and pine nuts

Chorizo

 I'll post a recipe or two from this adventure in madness soon.

Chicken skillet pie

Comfort foods are just that: comfortable. They should be all kinds of work and stress. Saturday, I made an amazing chicken pot pie in my cast iron skillet. Then I did it again on Sunday, it was that good!

How'd I do it? Easy!

I diced 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks, 4 garlic cloves, and half of a giant yellow onion

I sautéed that'll that in a 12 inch cast iron skillet, then I added some sage, thyme, salt, frozen mixed veggies (whatever I had in the freezer, and 8oz chopped, cooked chicken. I also added a spoonful of chicken bullion and about 1/2 cup of water.

I let it cook until it dried out a bit, then placed crescent rolls (not rolled up) on top. You could just as easily use puff pastry or actual pie crust, but this was what I had around...

Then I put the whole skillet under the broiler for about 10-12 min (until the rolls were puffy and browned. 

Then, I ate! Let me know what you try!

Spread your calorie further

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret... I LOVE peanut butter. It's my favorite food group, yes I said food group because it is soooo much more than just a food.  Unfortunately, it's really energy-dense so fitting more than a thimble-full into my day can be really difficult.

Lucky for me (and for you!) Trevor has developed a method to streeeetch that thimble of peanut butter into an amount that I almost feel guilty eating. Almost. What's more is that he does it without adding any calories!!  

He starts by measuring the amount of peanut butter he wants for the desired macros. When you do this, you can use any kind of peanut butter, just make sure that there 1) really are peanuts in there, and 2)  are ONLY peanuts in there (and maybe salt). NO ADDED SUGARS or OILS.

Take your peanut butter (which of course you've weighed so you know EXACTLY how much is there) and add 2/3 the weight of peanut butter in hot water. 



so for example, if I have 32 g (a typical serving size) of PB, I would add ~22 g hot water to it.

Then you mix.  Keep mixing.  There you go!  The fiber in the PB has absorbed the water and fluffed up making that tiny bit of yumminess more substantial looking.  Kind of like a blowfish trying to look scary.

I like to portion it 14g at a time into ice cube trays, (this makes 1serving of PB into ~4 cubes!) but however you want to do it, freeze this yummy whipped treat. 

When it has solidified, eat it!!