Beef and Pepper Stir Fry

This is actually based on a kabob recipe I have used before, but after a mishap on the grill with the flames flaring up and singeing my veggies, I decided to take the kabob ingredients, add a few other things, and make it into a stir fry. It was DELISH!

Here is the kabob recipe. The only change I made to the marinade was to sub Xylitol for the brown sugar, and Tamari for the soy sauce.

It's great to use as a stir fry because then you can add whatever veggies you want. The veggies I used were:

• Red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers
• Onions
• Broccoli

I stir fried the meat (sirloin sliced thinly) in some canola and sesame oil first, then removed it from the pan. Drained off the grease, added some more canola and sesame oil and threw in the veggies to stir fry. Once the veggies were about done, I added the meat back in along with the rest of the marinade and stirred it all together for another couple minutes until it was all hot. Obviously, this would be great over rice, but it was very good plain too!

It was very flavorful and filling. Try it!

No sugar, no dairy, no grains...so what do I eat???

That was my initial reaction when I was told last week that, in order to help get rid of the persistent thrush my breastfeeding daughter and I have been passing back and forth for the past 2 1/2 months, I needed to make a drastic change to my diet. The American diet is so full of carbs and sugar, it's ridiculous! The idea with this diet regarding the thrush is to "starve" the yeast so they can't grow and multiply. So, in addition to medication, sterilizing and washing everything, probiotics, and other supplements, I decided to go ahead and try the new diet.

My midwife gave me the guidelines, and here is what I can eat:

• Veggies (excluding potatoes)
• Meat
• Eggs
• Most nuts (no peanuts/peanut butter)
• Berries 
• Citrus
• Green apples
• 1 serving of a whole grain per day (brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread, etc)

What can't I eat?

• All dairy products (this is the hardest for me)
• All processed food
• All refined sugar
• All white flour
• All simple carbohydrates in general

So, rather than feeling defeated by my limited diet, I decided to take it as a cooking challenge! I have been making lots of yummy recipes and have found that, because I was cooking a lot from scratch already, it wasn't such a huge jump for me to modify our diet. I knew I had been eating too much sugar but lacked the motivation to kick the sugar habit. This was the motivation I needed. DO I still crave sugar? Absolutely. But thankfully, I can still eat berries, which are my favorite fruit and very much in season and sweet right now, which helps to curb my craving. I have also been using a no-sugar/carb sugar substitute called Xylitol to help sweeten things like iced tea, salad dressing, and my "quinoa pudding" breakfast I made.

I am excited to be able to post several new recipes I have tried that are part of my diet and all of these will be ones I will continue to make even when I am allowed to have dairy/sugar/grains again. Because of this diet, I have learned so much more about food, nutrition, and how the body processes what I eat. I am planning to keep a mostly low carb diet. And an added perk? Shedding some baby weight! I have lost 6 pounds in the past week!

Stay tuned for recipes!

Mayonnaise

I recently bought the book How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I started reading it today -- yes, reading a cookbook starting at the beginning (I am a nerd!) -- and ended up making mayonnaise tonight from scratch when I realized I didn't have enough of the storebought stuff for the coleslaw I was making for tomorrow's picnic. I can't believe how easy it was and how great it turned out!

After making it and knowing the few ingredients I used, I decided to take a look at the label on the storebought stuff I had. It is Kraft Mayo with olive oil. Here's the comparison.

Storebought

• Water
• Olive oil
• Canola oil
• Soybean oil
• Vinegar
• Modified Food Starch
• Sugar
• Maltodextrin
• Eggs
• And contains less than 2% of salt, mustard flour, dried onions, dried garlic, natural flavor, enzyme modified egg yolk, beta carotene (color), lactic acid, potassium sorbate, and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives, phosphoric acid.

Including the less than 2% items, that totals 20 ingredients. 20! 8 of which are non-natural ingredients.

Want to know what I put in my homemade mayonnaise?

• Egg yolk
• Dijon mustard
• Canola oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Lemon juice

Six ingredients, one of which was pre-prepared (storebought) -- the Dijon mustard, the rest of which are natural. Unfortunately, according to Bittman, Dijon is impossible to make with the equipment the home cook has, storebought is a necessity.

A nice thing about homemade mayo is that you can make it with whatever kind of oil you want: olive oil, grapeseed oil, sesame oil -- really whatever you want. You can also make it with a few different kinds of acid to suit the dish your making or your taste. I chose to use lemon juice and canola oil. It turned out great!

It took about 5 minutes to make and was really simple. I used my stand mixer, but you can use a food processor or wire whisk, too. The method involves slowly adding oil to the yolk/Dijon mixture, then finishing with the salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Try it! You won't be disappointed. In fact, I don't plan to eve buy mayonnaise again!

P.S. In case you're interested, this is the coleslaw I made -- it turned out great!

Rachel's Taco Soup

So many of the foods we eat have so many additives -- preservatives, sodium, the list is long. Now that my little boy is eating table food, it's become increasingly important to me for our family to eat foods with as little added non-food stuff as possible while keeping my sanity. Not always an easy task!

I've adapted one of my favorite winter go-to recipes to be built on more whole foods versus foods from a can, which usually have added sodium and preservatives. It turned out great and wasn't even that much more work. And considering this meal makes enough for a good four servings of leftovers, I'd say the extra time is really nothing to me. This soup is chock full of good for you, filling foods. It's a recipe you can feel good about serving your family!

I used whole tomatoes frozen from my garden, and kidney and black beans that I soaked, cooked, and froze for later use myself.

Tip: Freeze beans in can-sized servings (about 2 cups). When a recipe calls for canned beans, substitute your frozen ones!

So, without further ado, here is my recipe for Taco Soup.

Rachel's Taco Soup

1 medium onion, chopped

1 T olive oil

1 lb ground beef

Taco seasoning and water, to your taste (I use a lot :))

2 c soaked and cooked black beans

2 c soaked and cooked kidney beans

2 c tomatoes with juices, chopped
1 small can diced green chilies, undrained

1 c corn (I use frozen)

8 oz tomato sauce

1/2 c water

Saute onions in olive oil for 1 minute. Add ground beef to the pan and brown. Drain off fat. Add taco seasoning and water (just as you would for regular taco meat) and combine. Simmer for a few minutes.

Add the taco meat and the rest of the ingredients to your slow cooker. Give it a stir and let it cook on low for at least 5 hours.

Give it a taste. If you want more heat, you can add salsa, taco sauce or hot sauce. Or, better yet, add a halved, seeded hot pepper to the slow cooker to cook with the soup. If you want more depth, add some cumin and chili powder.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, fresh grated cheese, chopped cilantro and/or corn chips. Enjoy!

Yield: 8 generous servings

Rachel's notes

Beans: I slightly defrosted my frozen beans by submerging the bags into warm water for a few minutes. They were still slightly frozen when I added them to the soup.

Tomatoes: I used about 8 Roma tomatoes that I froze last summer from my garden. I soaked them for a couple minutes in warm water, slid the skins off, and chopped them up.