Spring Time Foraging

Today shaped up to be one of the first days I can truly remember since this past fall where the rain and wind subsided and the sun made a cameo appearance.  I dare say, an Oscar worthy one at that!  I looked at the forecast yesterday and it appeared there may be a chance for a jaunt in the woods where I wouldn't get wet and cold...

 I got some great closeups of some tiny mushrooms.

 I didn't pick them, but they sure are fun to take snapshots of up close.

I woke around 8 AM, ground my freshly self-roasted coffee beans, and started the kettle to fill the French press.  I whipped up the cream and butter for my 1st cup and enjoyed the morning; I thought that it appeared as though the weather would cooperate for me today.  After 2 more cups I gathered my foraging gear and tripod, threw on the boots and headed out the door.

 It still looks a bit bare, but it'll get real green in a hurry!  Lots of chum salmon and cutthroat trout in this here little creek.

I have been putting off picking nettles for the past few weeks now.  I scouted my patches at the end of February and one was yet to sprout, the other had just begun to sprout.  It's very interesting, as these 2 patches are only about 5 miles apart, but the micro-climates have an effect on when these plants will grow.  The first patch is very near my neighborhood, so I stopped at this one first.  I knew, that if I saw nettles here, there would be many more at my other patch.

 Closeups of the small nettle shoots.

 Mind the fine hairs, they irritate the skin for quite sometime.

There were a few here, not enough for me to feel comfortable with harvesting however.  I decided to walk the trails a bit to see if I couldn't find some other items to forage.  Unfortunately at this location I was unable to find anything.  I did, however, get some really great photos.

 Not sure what this is, but the way the water built up on the tiny bud was really cool.

 The squirrels have been busy over the winter slaying the fircones.

 A water skeeter floating on top of the water was what I was really trying to capture here, but if you look closely you can see the salmon fry in the background!

As soon as I went to snap the photo of this slug it tucked it's head down to eat some lichen...

I packed things up, cracked open a lemon flavored La Croix soda water and hit the road to the next location.  I had visions of a sack full of nettles and lamented in the possibility of even finding fiddlehead ferns.

 I thought this makeshift bench would frame the photo of the bay very nicely.

 A salmon jaw, nowhere near the water I might add.  I can only imagine what dragged this thing here...  Not sure what this flora is below but it was way cool looking.

I got out of the truck and checked the swampy area for ferns while trying not to sink to my shins!

I would have picked some, but this was essentially the extent of what was ready to be harvested, so I opted to leave them be and come back another day.

 Indian plum blossoms about to open up.

 A closeup of an evergreen tip that had fallen to the ground.

 There were a few trillium blossoms to enjoy.

I believe this is a skunk cabbage shoot, but I am uncertain.

 More cool tiny mushroom closeups.

 All washed up.

Is there such a thing as noble rot for rosehips?!?!?

I got to the area where the nettles grow and was greeted by many nettles ready for harvesting.

I picked until my bag was about half full and called it an afternoon.  I walked a bit more and snapped a few more photos.

I headed home and as I drove I thought that perhaps I might make a batch of nettle-kraut when I got home:
I ended up with a total of 3/4 of a pound of nettles.

I sprinkled the nettles with salt, fennel seed and caraway seed.

Mash it all up and let it wilt.  I like to use a beverage muddler.

Mix with 1 1/2 pounds of green cabbage.

I will let this sit for about an hour until some of the water gets drawn out by the salt and it wilts some more.  I will then add the mixture into 1 quart mason jars and top each jar off with salted water, date the jars and set them on my fermentation shelf.  It should be ready to enjoy in about 3 weeks.

Nettle-kraut:

3/4# fresh nettle tips
1 1/2# green cabbage
1 tbsp caraway seeds
1 tbsp fennel seeds
4 tbsp kosher salt (2 tbsp for making the salted water, 2 for wilting the mixture)
2 cups warm water
6 cups cool water
2 whole cabbage leaves
2 small river rocks (small enough to fit in the jar mouth)
2 coffee filters or cheesecloth
2 rubber bands

-Combine the nettle tips, cabbage, caraway, fennel and 2 tbsp of the salt together.  Mash until it is well wilted and some of the water begins to leech out.
-Pack into 1 quart mason jars, leaving a small amount of head room.  Place 1 cabbage leaf on top of the mixture to keep it submerged.  Place the rocks on top of the cabbage leaf.
-Mix the remaining 2 tbsp of salt in a 1/2 gallon container with 2 cups of hot water to dissolve the salt.  Add the cool water to bring the temperature of the water down.  Pour the salted water into the jars to completely submerge the kraut.
-Top each jar with the coffee filter or cheesecloth and secure it with the rubber band.
-Label your jars with the date.
-Check periodically for your preferred doneness, in my garage at about 55 degrees it takes about 3 weeks to get to where I like my kraut.

My advice would be to enjoy the kraut without cooking it, perhaps only slightly warming it if you don't enjoy it chilled.  Once you heat the kraut it will kill the beneficial bacteria that grow during the fermentation process.

Sous Vide Beef Heart Confit

I will preface this by saying I am extremely bad about thinking ahead and planning to post before I'm done cooking what I'm making and taking pics along the way, I apologize for the lack of pics and foresight.

I just purchased the Anova immersion circulator with Bluetooth and wifi. I've got to say this thing is awesome and well built for an at home circulator.  My first cook with it was beef heart confit from our cow we bought this past summer. I already had a Foodsaver in the cupboard begging to be used so the progression was, obviously 😉, to eventually get a circulator.

I read many reviews about sous vide beef heart and that they didn't like it as much as grilled beef heart. I've had beef heart skewered and grilled to rare before as many people say they prefer it, this was by far much better than that. I also enjoy chicken hearts as the flavor is intensely "chicken" like dark meat on steroids.

I rubbed the heart with cumin, oregano, chili powder, salt, onion powder and garlic powder and let it dry brine for 24 hours in the fridge. I then put it in a vacuum bag with some fresh thyme and some tallow from the renderings from the same cow. I set the circulator up and set the time and temperature to 24 hours at 145 degrees F (all of which can be done on my phone with the Anova app from anywhere by connecting the circulator to our home's wifi). The app sent me a notification telling me that the water was up to temp and the timer started to count down..

I pulled it off this morning, after 24 hours, before leaving to do some errands. I covered it in ice in the same Tupperware I used to cook it in, then set it to cool in the fridge.

Cooking at 145 rendered the heart pink throughout and nice and tender. I sliced it this afternoon once it was cool after coming home from running errands. I added it back to the juices that accumulated in the cooking bag with some Bragg's apple cider vinegar, to add in some acid, and a couple scoops of my home made habanero hot sauce.

I love it so much more than quickly grilled beef heart. The flavor is intensely "beefy" without any offal flavor that can be off putting. The fat (I left it on and didn't trim it off) was not gamey like the fat on the steaks has been (think grass flavored and gamey lamb). The texture is firm but not "crunchy" like heart can be and at the same time tender from the long cooking time.

We sous vide at work nearly everyday and being able to properly do it at home now is a game changer for me. With minimal prep work, cheap cuts of meat, and time you can easily have really great meals made for you while you work or play.

Rendering Tallow

I always buy whole cuts of meat and render the fat to make tallow. I thought I would share my process for this with you all.

After trimming and cutting my steaks I put all of the trim in a pot with a couple inches of water. I then place the pot on medium heat to bring the water to a boil.

Turn down the heat a bit to maintain a slow boil just above a simmer. The water will heat the fat and render it out slowly as it boils. Eventually the water will have evaporated and just the fat will remain. I usually let it go overnight to get the best yield I can.

Once the water has evaporated the fat will clarify and the pieces will begin to fry in the fat, I take them to a brown color and crispy texture. Now you are done.

Then strain them out and pass the tallow through a sieve, then transfer it to a container and store it in the fridge.

I like to toss the crackling in some seasoning and eat them with some hot sauce. Damn good eats.

You now have a great cooking fat for anything you would use butter or olive oil for. You can also deep fry in it if you are lucky enough to have a large enough supply of beef fat!

Now go eat a steak.

Neanderthin by Ray Audette: Book Review

I just finished reading the book Neanderthin by Ray Audette.  It is available through Amazon Prime for free with a membership, and if there's one thing I enjoy it's something for free or a reduced price!  I'd heard of this book in the past but didn't search it out or read it until now.  I'm glad that I did read it.  It was an interesting read.  I have heard it called one of the original works on the "Paleo" style diet.  I can't look up on Kindle Cloud Reader the copyright date so I cannot confirm the actual date.

I'll begin by stating that I do agree with nearly everything in this book.  I believe that the major health issues in America today are due to our moving away from whole/naturally occurring foods to the highly processed and, packaged and shelf stable goods, that you see on our grocery store shelves in such abundance today.  I truly believe that if each and every person were to focus solely on eating a whole foods diet we would all see lowered instance of disease and health issues (of course dependent on each person's own metabolic damage and their need for personalization in macro composition of their diet.)

The basic premise of this book is to stay away from all industrially processed foods and eat only what you could possibly find in nature.  Something I believe wholeheartedly and have focused my time and energy on over the past few years.

A few subjects that Ray mentioned that I do not personally agree with include his stance on abstaining from coffee, butter, dairy, snacking on and consuming the higher carbohydrate fruits and vegetables.  I have already eliminated so many things from my diet and daily consumption that I still would like to enjoy my coffee each morning.  Now, I'm not drinking Folger's or your average cheap cup of coffee.  I buy whole green coffee beans wholesale and I roast them myself in my garage on a weekly, or as needed, basis.  When it comes to butter and dairy, I think this can be an extremely individual omission from one's diet.  Depending on your own personal tolerance of dairy fat or casein you should have no problem with butter, especially good quality grassfed butter.  It's very high in many essential amino acids.  I tend to treat cheese as an occasional treat as I can very easily eat 1/2# of the stuff without blinking an eye.  I, otherwise, suffer no ill effects from eating it.  Higher carbohydrate dairy like milk should be avoided, cream can be partaken occasionally, but can be insulinogenic and quite calorically dense so be careful to not swig down a whole pint at a time!  The advice to snack on nuts, fruits and higher carb vegetables can also be very individualistic depending on one's personal metabolic damage and insulin resistance.  If you don't tolerate or metabolize carbohydrate well, you probably shouldn't be snacking on these items.  Nuts can be a trigger food just as cheese can for many, it's easy to overindulge on nuts just like it is cheese.  I believe that he lays a great framework for adherence, but I also believe that there should be some tweaking dependant on individual circumstance and finding one's own path to good nutrition and health.

Alcohol.  Ray suggests to abstain from drinking alcohol aside from once or twice a year and keep it to special occasions only.  While I can't disagree with this, I also can't say that I would give it up and/or only drink it so infrequently.  I enjoy a glass of red wine a couple of times per week and VERY rarely will drink enough to even catch a buzz.  Often times I won't make it through the afterwork glass of wine before I start to doze off!  Many times I have poured out a 1/3 of a bottle because the air got to it and it turned unpleasant to drink.

Ray also outlines a great program for exercise.  While I have developed my own bodybuilding routine I think that his outline would be a great start for someone looking to get into better shape.  There is great evidence showing that bodyweight exercises can do great things for building bigger muscles.  Just look at any prison inmate who is absolutely JACKED and all they can do each day for 23 hours is bodyweight exercise.  Do a couple hundred pushup, situps, pullups, squats and dips each day and tell me there won't be some serious hypertrophy happening!

The last point I would like to touch on from the book is in regard to fat loss.  During the FAQ towards the end of the book the questions asks: "How long will it take me to lose weight following Neanderthin?"  The information he states mirrors my own experience.  Weight loss is quick and dramatic in the beginning but the last 10-20 pounds can take 2-3 years depending on how heavy you are and for how long you were that heavy.  I lost 80 pounds in the first ~10 months or so following a keto/LCHF way of eating and didn't exercise at all.  About 2 years into this journey I decided to begin weight training.  I haven't seen much change in the scale, maybe a loss of 5 pounds, but my body composition has changed quite drastically.  According to guidelines I should be about 10 pounds lighter than I currently am.  My focus has been on nutrition and weight training, the number on the scale has been just another marker to gauge progress, but not the sole form of measurement.  The lowest number I've seen on the scale was 174 last November but I got sick and I believe much of this was lost water during my illness, perhaps some muscle lost because my lifts had been reduced once I got back in the gym a month later.  I rebounded up about 10 pounds from there and have seen the scale drop another 5 pounds or so in the past few months.

In conclusion this is a great read.  It outlines, in very easy to follow terms, the why and how of turning your health around for the better.  Your body is made of saturated fat, don't be afraid to eat it.  All of your cells in your body are made up of 80% cholesterol, it's the transport system for all of your hormones and it repairs all cells, don't be afraid to eat that either.  Don't eat the garbage in the middle of the store, hunt your ingredients from the outer edge of the store.  If it has a list of ingredients it's generally not good for you to consume.  I do eat a couple of condiments (Frank's Redhot and specialty mustard, they are always free of processed ingredients, thickeners, seed oils and sugar) and I purchase organic chicken broth from Costco because my schedule is busy enough to not make my own broth.  Get some exercise when you feel like it, lift some weights (women too) live life.  Now go eat a steak!

08.22.16 - I'm back, I hope!

Well it's been quite sometime since I've posted, over 2 years.  Not that I have any followers...!  I thought it might be a good idea to be more regular with this sort of thing.

For 14ish months now I've been adhering to a zero carb/carnivorous way of eating and I can honestly say that it has been awesome.  I've also, at the end of this month, been weight training for 1 year consistently (though I did have 1 month break in November of last year when I got sick and took it easy.)

I haven't seen a lot of movement on the scale, though there has been much change in my body composition as seen through tape measurements and pictures.  I originally started with the KetoGains protocol and saw good results.  However, I recently designed my own program based on an old bodybuilding technique of the 20 rep squat and deadlift and have been on that for the past couple of months training 2 days per week.  I also dropped my gym membership and built my own powerrack and gym in my garage for ease and convenience.

I don't want to get into a whole lot of detail on this post, but I wanted to use it as a primer for my coming back to blogging.  I hope to type to you in the future and on a more consistent basis!

07.08.14

This past week I took the IF'ing to a whole new level/extreme, starting last Wednesday (the 2nd) I ate all my calories for the day in a 2 hour window.  I thought I might share my experiences and how it went:

It's hard to ingest 2000 calories...  If it wasn't for my BPC (bullet proof coffee) I think I would really have a hard time with not only my macros, but also being able to fit in all that food.  I would begin by planning out my meal in the morning with the available food in my fridge and tweak it to make sure I was getting my protein and fat allotments, carbohydrates ended up being less than a net of 10 most days.  I really enjoyed this aspect of this regimen as I was only required to log, cook and eat once a day, really liberating.  As I've written about before with Fat Fasting it seems that all you think about during the day is your next 200 calorie meal, not the case with this, I didn't really think about food at all!

I lost 4 pounds...  Recently my exercising has appeared to be affecting my weight loss, either through water retention or through muscle building it is unclear, but I wasn't seeing the loss that I was happy with.  While still on a general downward trend, I would gain, then lose, then gain, then lose.  So I quit exercising.  It's hard not to get frustrated when you feel like you should have a good loss for the week and you step on the scale and it's up 2-3 pounds!  I don't know if it's related, but I feel like I'm smaller during the IF, it's almost as if I can feel the fat melting away as I rely on my body's storage for a majority of the day.

Yes there's some hunger throughout the day...  There is but not really, hard to describe.  I feel a twinge in my stomach, but drinking water, or as I prefer, brewed iced tea generally satisfies any feelings going on down there.  Last year I bought a 72oz Bubba Keg and I drink at least 1 of them while at work, usually closer to 2 during the course of the day.

I enjoyed it...  I didn't really experience any downside to this WOE, I doubt I'll be as strict on my weekend, but during the work week I think it's a great way to go!

Update

So I've recently jump-started my weight loss once again by introducing Intermittent Fasting into my eating routine.  I had read many people online saying to try it and it helped them, so I figured I'd give it a try.  While at the restaurant it's hard to not want to eat all the time, but perseverance has paid off.  I eat my last meal before dinner service, somewhere between 4 and 5 and don't feed again (aside from tasting dishes here and there) until my morning Bulletproof Coffee at 7 or 8 am.  So anywhere from 14-16 hours of fasting, most of which is during busy dinner service periods, driving home and sleeping, so it's been relatively easy as my brain is occupied or I have no access to food during all those times.  It also has helped me evaluate my hunger quite a bit more and come more in tune with my body.  As many people can probably relate to this story:  You are told most of you life to eat many small meals and make sure you don't skip one, Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Snack, Dinner, Dessert...  That overwhelms me just thinking about trying to manage calorie intake and nutrients, nevermind logging all that food into MyFitnessPal every time I eat!  I have structured my eating patterns to coincide my hunger with my eating schedule, my two meals I eat each day are typically around 500-800 calories, plus my 2 cups of Bulletproof Coffee is just under 400 calories, I typically eat under 2000 a day and don't really ever go hungry "MUST EAT NOW!!!"  There is a calming effect to hunger on Keto, you know you should eat, but it's going to be ok if you don't get to it right now, I'll just keep burning fat (lord knows I've got plenty to feed off of!)  Before on the high carbohydrate roller coaster it was all I could think about until I got something to eat.