By Meal

Pastured Egg Salad

May 22, 2011 By jenniepaige Leave a Comment
Egg SaladThanks for checking back at Pure Homemaking, I hope you make yourself at home!

Sometimes Egg Salad can be a bit too…well eggy. I love eggs but sometimes having a traditional Egg Salad is a bit much on the egg front. My husband isn’t a huge fan of egg salad but I do like it, so I had to come up with a compromise that we would both enjoy. So, for lunch yesterday I remembered that I had a dozen eggs already hard-boiled in the fridge ready to be used up and decided to give it a go. Even though I HATE peeling hard-boiled eggs! It’s especially tough when you have fresh eggs. The older they are the easier they break away from the shell when hard-boiled. Another tip is to chill them immediately after cooking them from what I’ve read and it does seem to make the process go by well. And as my seven-year old daughter pointed out, having nails helps peel the shell too-something I never have and she does. So, she asked to help me and she did a bang up job even if it was a bit slow.  (Have any egg peeling tips? Dish!) [Read more...]

Filed Under: Lunch Tagged With: ,

Chicken Nuggets

May 15, 2011 By jenniepaige 6 Comments
Chicken Nuggets

Many of you might remember my article that I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of eating conventional chicken nuggets. I specifically broke down all of the ingredients in McDonald’s nuggets, but sadly they are not alone. The junk that I mentioned that was in them is not just in nuggets, but can be found in many pre-packaged food-like substances.

So in order to avoid all of the junk while still allowing my children to eat the foods that they like, I came up with a healthy version of chicken nuggets. And guess what? It’s easy too! Who knew? What I suggest doing is to make a large batch of this and freeze them so you can have a healthy meal on hand when you feel yourself giving into the drive-though temptation that we have all felt. Serve them with some raw carrots or celery sticks for some added crunch. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Chicken, Lunch Tagged With: , ,

Liberating French Fries

May 10, 2011 By jenniepaige 4 Comments

I had a hankering for french fries this past weekend. Like I HAD to have them. And I’m not even a big french fry person-I am SO picky about french fries. They must be thin, crispy and light feeling. Not burnt and not chewy-gross! I also try to avoid any kind that you can get through a drive-through, and I have never seen any advertised in a restaurant that says they were cooked in a HEALTHY oil.  The affordable frozen pre-made variety are always only so-so and usually have nasty things in them like trans-fat, msg, etc. So, I generally just don’t eat them.

But we were grilling up some fantastic grass-fed cheeseburgers this weekend and I told my husband that I MUST have french fries. I think I was tempted originally by a recipe over at The Cheese Slave and decided that I had to give it a try. We have made french fries that were fried in olive oil before and baked in the oven but they never compared to that boardwalk fries taste I was going for.  So I decided to give french fries fried in grass-fed tallow a go. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Lunch, On the Side, Side Dishes, Snacks & Deserts Tagged With: , , , , ,

Spiced Apple Pop-Over

May 5, 2011 By jenniepaige 13 Comments
Spiced Apple Pop-Over

 

I have been making different variations of this dish for several years. During Christmas I do individual pop-overs baked in muffin tins filled with goat cheese and herbs. My family can’t get enough of them and they are so simple yet FUN to eat. They fluff up pretty high sometimes, hence the name pop-overs. Served plain and made with beef drippings this recipe is also know as yorkshire pudding in England, which is a much loved culinary tradition.

I usually make my pop-overs with butter, but this time I wanted to try some of my freshly rendered lard that I got from an Amish farm that’s fairly local to me. This dish is a great way to to incorporate more eggs in your diet without serving eggs for breakfast all the time. This is the best and easiest recipe I have found and have used it several times, and it always works. Traditionally this is made using a pre-heated cast iron skillet but the recipe that this one came from said to just put it in a cold oven. Works for me! I just used a rounded deep-dish pie plate so it’s very versatile. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast, Main Dishes Tagged With: , , ,

THE Best Granola. EVER.

April 27, 2011 By jenniepaige 15 Comments
YUM!

After my post last week in which I claimed that I had the best granola recipe EVER, I thought that I better post the actual recipe so you can see if you like it as much as we did!  (oops!) Remember this teaser pic?

Ok, so not to toot my own horn here but my granola turned out SO good this time! I”m not sure if it was because I actually took the time to soak the oats and nuts or perhaps the added salt really helped to pronounce the flavors more- doesn’t matter because it was gooood! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast, Snacks & Deserts Tagged With: , , ,

Warming up to Green Smoothies

April 20, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments
green berry smoothie

 

I’m sure many of you, if not all, have heard of green smoothies.  It’s really no big deal stick a few greens in with your smoothie. It sounds stranger than it actually tastes.  (Plus the smoothies don’t actually have to BE green as the picture above shows) I have learned to do it in moderation and most of the time my kids don’t even know. You can’t taste it if you don’t add a huge amount or don’t choose something like mustard greens. Not that I hide vegetables or try to “sneak them” at all, but it’s nice to get extra greens in when you can.

Here’s a good recipe to start warming up to the idea. Or if you are already a green smoothie pro, then you can add this one to your smoothie menu.  This fresh fruit smoothie is packed full of probiotics, antioxidants, iron, potassium, and good fats all while being a pleasure to your palate. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast, Drinks Tagged With: , , ,

5 Ways to Make Eggs-fast!

April 18, 2011 By jenniepaige Leave a Comment
Scrambled eggs with cottage cheese and spinach

I have been boycotting buying cereal. Just haven’t done it. It was the LAST thing to go in our menus on healthful eating and boy was it hard to convince my kids (and my husband) to kick the habit. We were spending easily $30-40 or more per month on crappy nutrition-less air-filled cereal. We are usually rushing around quite a bit in the mornings and there’s just no time for fooling around much in the kitchen in the a.m. So meals either have to be prepped the night before (thank you soaked pancakes and oatmeal) or really very quick and easy to whip up. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast Tagged With: , , , , ,

Soaked Banana Millet Muffins

April 13, 2011 By jenniepaige 2 Comments
banana millet muffins

 

Uh…YUM! That’s all I have to say about these muffins.  You will not believe how good they are for you either.  These are stock full of a variety of whole grains (even better if you include the soaking option) , eggs, good fats, fruit, and honey goodness. These are best when topped with grass-fed butter. And you can even get crazy with it by adding nuts or chocolate chips (a favorite with the kids).

I adapted this recipe for consistency from this recipe from Passionate Homemaking and they turned out fantastical both times I made them. They are an easy beginner recipe for soaking grains too as it turns out  well each time. Baby steps… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breads, Breakfast Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Coconut Flour and Flax Pancakes

April 8, 2011 By jenniepaige 4 Comments
Messy pancakes

 

These were really really good! And the ingredients list will both surprise you. But you will be in health food heaven when you taste it. Especially if topped with warmed real maple syrup and plenty of grass fed butter. Regular butter is good too though.  I adapted this a bit from a recipe posted on Tropical Traditions to get a better consistency and to add some extra protein that farm fresh eggs deliver. Overall, a keeper to add to your morning breakfast or “brinner” (breakfast for dinner as my lovely husband came up with) que.  This recipe doesn’t yield many pancakes but it’s very filling due to the coconut flour which is high in protein, low in carbs and also gluten free. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Soaked Buttermilk Biscuits

April 8, 2011 By jenniepaige 1 Comment

This recipe I adapted to add a soaking step to break down the phytic acid and unlock all of the vital nutrients in the whole grain flour but you can also just use sprouted flour as the original recipe calls for. If using sprouted flour then you can skip the soaking step. I pulled the original recipe from Kelly the Kitchen Kop. This is however a cheater cheater recipe because it does contain white flour. If someone has a recipe using 100% grains then please post! This was pretty straight forward and I will add a couple of tips to doing biscuits to help you along. This was my first attempt at making completely homemade biscuits of any kind and it turned out SO well! I was surprised. For some reason I had it in my head that making biscuits was hard. It’s not! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breads, Breakfast Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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